This should not be impossible. The Daily News reported on Oct. 1 that there had been zero 2014 traffic deaths in the 108th Precinct in Queens — home to Queens Boulevard, a pedestrian death trap. It credited a sharp increase in traffic enforcement, including particular crackdowns on moving violations and drunken driving. Even as cycling has exploded in the city, fatalities are low, and the rate of pedestrian injuries caused by bikes is declining. The real threat, as ever, is cars. Bicyclists have killed three pedestrians since 2009. Drivers killed 178 pedestrians and cyclists in 2013 alone.

All New Yorkers need to accept that traffic laws are not suggestions. The city already exhibits more-or-less-civil behavior in other traffic areas: We line up single file to board buses; right-turning drivers stay put on red. Cycling can be made civil, too — through more tickets, of course, but also through things like synchronized traffic lighting to ease the flow in parks and good upkeep of painted lanes — or actual barriers — separating bikes, pedestrians and cars. Lowering the speed limit for cars, to 25 miles per hour on most streets, was a wise move by the City Council this month. The speed on heavily used bike lanes in Central and Prospect Parks should be slowed, too — 25 m.p.h. is too fast. If racers want a velodrome, there’s one in Queens.

Next year, Chicago is to start a radical experiment in safety — a “shared street.” Argyle Street in the Uptown neighborhood will have no curb cuts and a speed limit of 15 miles per hour for everyone; cars, bikes and pedestrians will be expected to figure it out. In New York, that may be a street too far. But the solid underlying idea is of a city where multiple modes of movement are respected and sharing is encouraged.

New York is not Houston or Atlanta. We are a city of pedestrians, who venture into the street without benefit of helmets or air bags. In matters of traffic safety, all are equal, but pedestrians are more equal than others.

This principle might be called Ratso’s Law, from the character in “Midnight Cowboy” whose words to a menacing yellow cab — “I’m walkin’ here! I’m walkin’ here!” — were a perfect six-word manifesto for the New York life.