While Mayor Eric Adams has previously talked up the fact that 2023 was among the safest years for pedestrians on record, it’s been a different story so far this year.

The driver of a Nissan Titan who fatally struck an 8-year-old boy as he traversed a crosswalk with his brother and mother on Wednesday was put in handcuffs, according to officials.  

Jose Barcia faces charges of criminally negligent homicide, driving at an unsafe speed, failure to exercise due care and failure to yield to pedestrians, authorities said.

“The message is clear — all drivers should protect pedestrians, should protect cyclists. That’s what we’re doing,” Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodríguez told NY1.

This year through Wednesday, 23 pedestrians have been killed, according to data. By the end of last year, 101 pedestrians were killed — the fewest number of people killed while walking on the street over the last decade, when in 2013, 184 pedestrians died.  

“Under this administration, we’ve been getting all the resources that we need in order to continue making the streets safe,” Rodríguez said.  

One aspect of street safety that has been in decline — the NYPD enforcing the rules of the road, as vehicle traffic has largely rebounded from the pandemic.  

“We really should expect much, much more from our drivers and it’s hard to do that when you’ve just kind of retreated from the idea that there are rules on our streets,” Jon Orcutt, a former Department of Transportation official, told NY1.  

The number of tickets NYPD officers wrote for failure to yield the right of way to pedestrians took a dive once the pandemic hit were 54,477 in 2018, 81,615 in 2019, 35,257 in 2020, 29,091 in 2021, 38,536 in 2022 and 35,500 in 2023.  

That was also the case for moving violations as a whole, with 1,066,376 in 2018, 985,057 in 2019, 510,342 in 2020, 508,284 in 2021, 606,623 in 2022, and 689,960 in 2023.

When asked about the decline in traffic enforcement, Adams, at a news conference Tuesday about a crackdown on "ghost cars," defended the NYPD’s traffic safety efforts.  

“We have the safest year for pedestrians in probably the history of the city shows that these guys are doing the job that they want,” Adams said.  

He added that more drivers are better behaved behind the wheel.  

“You’re seeing some people are learning their lessons,” he said.

But that’s a different perspective from Steve Vaccaro, an attorney who represents pedestrians and cyclists injured in vehicle accidents.

“Since the pandemic we’ve seen a real drop in driving behavior — it’s less courteous, it’s less safe,” he said.

Vaccaro said the growth of speed cameras, and the tickets they issue, have motivated lead-foot motorists to be more careful.  

“With respect to the failure to yield citations, which are issued only by police officers, that’s not my experience, either as a pedestrian in New York City and a lifelong New Yorker,” Vaccaro said. “It’s also not my experience as an attorney representing people who are struck in the crosswalk, with the right of way, by aggressive turning drivers who are trying to beat them through.”