25 mph speed limit takes effect Friday in New York City

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Starting Friday, a new, slower speed limit is in effect for most of New York City's streets.

The city's default speed limit dropped from 30 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour.

Educating people about the change started Thursday at the Department of Transportation's sign shop in Maspeth, Queens, where the DOT unveiled its new signs and loaded them onto trucks.

The first signs went up Friday where drivers enter the city.

Some streets will even have even lower limits, like one near a public school in Queens, where an 8-year-old boy was killed in December crossing Northern Boulevard. Many motorists didn't seem to be clear on what the law is or what it was going to be.

The lower speed limit law was signed last week by Mayor Bill de Blasio as a key part of the mayor's Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic-related deaths.

The DOT put some signs up to remind drivers of the change, but eventually, you'll be on your own.

Statistics show the speed matters a lot, and victims are twice as likely to survive if the vehicle is traveling at the slower speed. Officials at Department of Transportation say that so far this year, 111 pedestrians were killed on city streets.

Mary Beth Kelly, of Families for Safe Streets, knows all too well what it's like to lose a loved one. Her husband, Dr. Carl Henry Nacht, was killed by a truck driver on Manhattan's West Side back in 2006. She has been working towards this type of change ever since.

Meanwhile, police took to social media to spread the word, even tweeting out pictures of enforcement with the hashtag #25SavesLives to drive the message home.