Motor vehicle collisions in New York City in 2015 are summarized as follows: - There were 149,457 documented motor vehicle collisions in New York City in 2015, with the majority occurring in Brooklyn and Manhattan. - Passenger vehicles and sport utility vehicles comprised 70% of the 293,875 total vehicles involved in collisions. The most common types of vehicles involved were taxis, vans, and buses. - Collisions peaked between 4-5pm after office hours and were highest in the summer months. The top reasons for collisions were driver inattention, failure to yield right-of-way, and fatigue.

1. “MOTOR VEHICLE COLLISIONS IN THE NEW YORK CITY AREA IN 2015”
Introduction and Dataset
From January to November, 2015, NYPD reported a stag-
gering 175,000 motor collisions in New York City, out of
which only 149,457 have been properly documented. Among the
documented ones, the majority of collisions were reported in
Brooklyn followed by Manhattan. The main objective for this
analysis is to answer, for the safety of the commuters, the next re-
search questions: 1) where, 2) who, 3) when and 4) why were the
most involved in the collisions throughout NYC.
As seen in the map above there is partially no place in NYC
where a crash accident hasn’t occurred. Date, time, Bor-
ough, location by latitude and longitude, people injured,
people killed, reason behind collisions and type of vehicle are just
some of the information contained in the mentioned dataset. The
dataset had to be sorted to work only with the information con-
tained for the year 2015, then it had to be cleaned to remove the
blank spaces and unspecified entries, then after the various analy-
sis were performed. The mentioned dataset is the NYPD Motor
Vehicle Collisions and can be found in the next link:
https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Motor-
Vehicle-Collisions/h9gi-nx95
1) Where?
Casualties
The total number of vehicles involved in motor collisions were
around 293,875 being Brooklyn the borough with the highest
number of casualties. Likewise, it is worthy to note that 46% of NYC
households own a car, accordingly to streetblog.com. This number is
comparatively lower than most of other cities in the U.S. Yet the
number of collisions still is pretty staggering.
Collision distribution throughout NYC
Borough Collisions People Injured People Killed
Brooklyn 46552 12493 57
Manhattan 38915 5941 20
Queens 38869 9506 45
Bronx 19398 5145 25
Staten Island 5723 1424 11
NYC 149457 34509 158
2) Who?
3) When?
Out of 293,875 vehicles involved, 138,315 were Passenger Vehicles and around 67,000 were Sport Utility vehicles. They
comprised 70% of the total vehicles. This can be attributed to the fact that the number of Passenger Vehicles and Sport
Utility/Station Wagons Vehicles in any city is much higher compared to public transportation , though this may be an excep-
tion for Manhattan. The other types of vehicles most involved were Taxis, Vans and Buses. Below you will find a bar chart
which shows the three most impacted commuters. It is interesting to note that even though none of the three (Motorist, Pedes-
trian, Cyclist) types were involved in most collisions , yet they were the most impacted ones.
The graph above
depicts the
hours of the day
which are the most
susceptible for an ac-
cident to occur. The
graph clearly indi-
cates a dip in the
number of accidents
at night while the col-
lisions peak during
10000
11000
12000
13000
14000
15000
16000
Collisionsover2015
after office hours when most people are out in the road. The graph on
the left side it depicts the number of accidents per month. Summer
months are the ones with the highest number of collisions while Winter
monthts tend to show a shrinkage since people tends to use less their
vehicles.
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
1.Driver inattention
2.Failure to Yield Right-of-Way
3.Other vehicular
4.Fatigued
5.Backing unsafely
Top 5 related reasons for collisions
Staten Island Bronx Manhattan Queens Brooklyn
4) Why?
Finally, it is of sum importance to acknowledge why the collision happened in
the first instance. The graph above depicts the most outstanding reasons for col-
lisions to happen. As shown, the most important is Driver inattention followed
by Failure to yield right of way.
Conclusions
If you own a car in New York City, you probably
should take note that Brooklyn and Manhattan are
the most accident prone areas in New York City, also, it is
more likely for accident to happen after office hours be-
tween 4 and 5 in the afternoon. Be aware, if you are rid-
ing a bicycle or a motorcycle, that these type of people is
the one that get the most injured and killed even though
these types of vehicles are barely not involved in the colli-
sions examined. But most important drive safe, know
that your beloved ones are waiting for you.
EM 622 Final Poster
Prepared and presented by:
Enrique Arevalo and Dhruv Sanghavi
December 14th, 2015