New Orleans traffic cops are getting a public shout out from their own bosses after what the department says is a sharp drop in deadly crashes. The New Orleans Police Department announced Monday that traffic fatalities are down about 40 percent compared with 2025 and credited street-level enforcement and support staff for the shift, while publicly praising several officers by name.
In a post that included photos of the team, the department singled out Officers Claudette Kirkland, Stephen Neveaux, Eric Carr, Stephen McGee and Juan Garcia-Vargas, saying the Traffic Division's work helped drive the decrease, according to New Orleans Police Department. The post did not provide a dataset or a detailed crash tally and appears to describe a year-to-date comparison rather than a finalized statewide total.
City data and caveats
The city's Transportation Safety Dashboard compiles crash reports submitted to the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development and currently publishes through 2024. Full statewide compilations are released annually, which can lag behind policing agencies' year-to-date counts, according to City of New Orleans Transportation Safety Dashboard. That reporting schedule helps explain how a department post can tout a steep drop before state or university summaries release final totals. Anyone tracking trends has to keep in mind the gap between preliminary police tallies and the annual LADOTD and CARTS datasets.
Past totals and safety plans
City officials have been laying groundwork for engineering and policy fixes through the Safe Streets for All action plan, which targets high-risk corridors and coordinates enforcement, engineering and outreach, per Safe Streets action plan. The city's dashboard and advocacy groups have documented a multi-year pattern of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths in New Orleans, and officials say that history makes the latest year-to-date improvement a meaningful sign if it holds.
What NOPD is crediting
The department's announcement explicitly credited "the hard work of traffic officers and support staff" for the reduction, according to New Orleans Police Department. Advocates and transportation planners generally agree that stepped-up enforcement can help, but they also point out that long-term cuts in deaths usually depend on engineering changes such as better lighting, safer crossings and slower traffic corridors.
What to watch next
Officials say they will keep an eye on crash totals and on the Safe Streets action plan's priority corridors, while fuller confirmation of any year-over-year shift will wait on the annual releases from LADOTD and LSU CARTS. For residents with questions about specific crashes or the Traffic Division's work, the city's dashboard lists the NOPD Traffic Division contact and routes users to department resources, per the City of New Orleans Transportation Safety Dashboard.
For now, the department's Facebook announcement is an early signal that deadly crashes may be trending down. Whether this marks a durable change will only become clear once official yearly totals are published and more Safe Streets projects are in place. We will continue to watch city and state releases for firmer answers.
