Vision Zero is a program created by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014. Its purpose is to reduce by 50% the number traffic fatalities by 2025. On January 15, 2014, Mayor de Blasio announced the launch of Vision Zero in New York City, based on a similar program of the same name that was implemented in Sweden. The original Swedish theory hypothesizes that pedestrian deaths are not as much "accidents" as they are a failure of street design.
New York City had seen a significant decrease in traffic fatalities over the last 2 decades prior to 2014. In 1990 there were around 2000 traffic fatalities. In 2013 there were 286 traffic fatalities. 2014 saw the least pedestrian fatalities since 1910.
The plan includes criminal charges against traffic violators, speed limit reduction from 30 to 25 miles per hour (48 to 40 km/h), slow zones, increased enforcement, increase use of speed cameras, quicker repairing broken traffic signals, strict enforcement on taxi drivers and more. Under the Vision Zero plan New Vision Zero laws made it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, if a driver does not yield to a pedestrian and causes death or injury., Any government official on duty is exempt from this law and is not charged with a crime.
There was a reduction in traffic fatalities in the year 2014, but the reaction was mixed. Transit union officials say that bus drivers are persecuted through this law, and that they should be treated like government officials and not be charged criminally. Opponents say that buses killed at least 9 of the 132 pedestrians in 2014 and that they should therefore be investigated like anyone else.