New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, was sworn in a little before midnight on December 31, 2013. Among his promises was one to support the so-called ”vision zero.” This initiative, which is Swedish, strives to not just reduce, but eliminate traffic deaths altogether, and it is now an integral part of de Blasio’s transit platform. A Vision Zero Clock will automatically update every time a pedestrian, cyclist, driver or passenger is killed in 2014.

Vision Zero, or ”nollvision” as it is called in Swedish, started in Sweden in 1997, with the aim to achieve a highway system with no fatalities or serious injuries in road traffic.
The four principles upon which the project is built are: ethics (meaning human life and health are paramount and take priority over mobility and other objectives of the road traffic system); responsibility (providers and regulators of the road traffic system share responsibility with users); safety (road traffic systems should take account of human fallibility and minimize both the opportunities for errors and the harm done when they occur); and, mechanisms for change (providers and regulators must do their utmost to guarantee the safety of all citizens; they must cooperate with road users, and all three must be ready to change to achieve safety).