Delivery Truck Traffic in NYC: Heavy and Getting Heavier
With the increase in volume of online shopping and home delivery services, truck traffic has increased across New York City. As Amazon and other online sellers grow in popularity, home delivery vehicles can be seen at all times of the day and night throughout the streets of NYC..
Kendra Hems, president of the Trucking Association of New York, a nonprofit trade group that represents the state’s trucking industry, says there are certain parts of the city where home deliveries now outpace commercial deliveries.
“Trucks are having to make deliveries in areas where 10 years ago they may not have had to go down that street,” she says.1
According to the New York Department of Transportation (“DOT”), approximately 97,000 trucks and commercial vehicles cross NYC boundaries each day, including at least 25,000 moving to and from Manhattan.2 The danger that this volume of truck and commercial traffic poses to pedestrians and personal vehicles is substantial.
As personal injury lawyers, we are very familiar with the extreme consequences that can occur when an accident includes a delivery truck. In December of 2019, for example, two pedestrians were killed on the same day in separate accidents with box trucks.3 The accidents happened at 3:30 p.m. in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and at 5:00 p.m. in Soho, Manhattan.
One solution to the problem of excessive delivery truck traffic that has been used by DOT is the Off Hours Delivery Program.4 Piloted in 2009 and 2010, this program has worked to increase the number of deliveries between the “off hours” of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., particularly in heavy-traffic areas such as Midtown, lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn and Jamaica.
If you or someone that you love has been injured in a delivery truck accident, we can help. The experienced lawyers at the Law Offices of Michael S. Lamonsoff PLLC, have had enormous success when handling truck accident claims in New York. Our firm knows how to fight for your rights.