Leandra Rosado, 11, was killed last month when a car driven by Carmen Huertas crashed on the Henry Hudson Parkway.

Depending on what course those discussions take, such changes could hinge on approval from Albany. As we reported previously, prosecutors are already pushing legislation that would remove the requirement that a doctor be present to supervise blood withdrawals. Inexplicably, state lawmakers -- and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in particular -- have a history of coddling drunk drivers, the latest example being the fight over "Leandra's Law," playing out at the capitol as of this writing.

While a truly comprehensive bill would aim to protect people of all ages whether or not they are in a car, one would think a measure to toughen penalties for DWI with children in the vehicle would fly to the governor's desk. Yet Silver has now attempted to water down two such measures. The original Leandra's Law would make it a felony to get behind the wheel with a BAC of .08 if passengers under the age of 16 are present. Assembly Dems want to raise the felony BAC level to .18, more than twice the legal limit for driving. Carmen Huertas, the driver in the October crash that killed Leandra Rosado, had a BAC of .132.

According to Monique Dixon, in 2005 Silver wavered in his support for a bill to make it a felony in New York State to kill someone while driving drunk. Dixon, whose 11-year-old son Vasean Alleyne was killed by a drunk driver who spent 38 days in jail, eventually won passage of a tougher "Vasean's Law" than Silver wanted.

Even the newly agreed upon protocol for collecting blood evidence leaves New York woefully behind. Prosecutors are working on a bill to remove the up-front warrant requirement in cases of death or serious injury where there is probable cause for DWI. Such procedure is common in other states, notes defense attorney Howard Weiner in the Times. Local laws, Weiner said, are "much more protective of drivers than those in other parts of the country."

Mayor Bloomberg has already shown how much his administration can accomplish in just a few years. Since Janette Sadik-Khan's appointment to head the DOT in 2007, the city has striped hundreds of miles of bike lanes, reclaimed acres of street space for pedestrians and improved bus travel for tens of thousands of New Yorkers. "More of the same" is no longer a dirty phrase when it comes to local transportation policy. During the next four years, the mayor needs to accelerate this progress, and introduce a few key innovations to maximize the value New Yorkers get from their new streets.

There is plenty of room to build on the Bloomberg administration's record of support for safer, greener streets. Photosim of 34th Street: Luc Nadal and Marc De Decker, ITDP.

Well, the release of DOT's Street Design Manual back in July was an especially auspicious development. This groundbreaking playbook contains templates that can transform streets in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. The manual is an engineering document, but it also makes sense as an outreach tool. Community groups concerned about street safety could use the manual as a menu, requesting traffic calming solutions for their neighborhood from DOT. Liberal use of these new designs, applied through a smart community-based process, could pay huge dividends all over the city.

For a fraction of the cost of subway line construction, buses could move millions, if the mayor throws his weight behind BRT.

One sensible way for the NYPD to roll out this approach to traffic enforcement would be to start in areas frequented by children and seniors. Seniors make up 12 percent of New York's population, yet account for 39 percent of pedestrian fatalities. And according to the Department of Health, auto traffic is the leading cause of injury-related death in children ages 1-14. DOT's Safe Routes to School and Safe Routes for Seniors programs have spawned imitators around the country, but our city is no longer the national leader. Other cities are now far ahead of New York when it comes to implementing these street safety programs. Combined with police enforcement, short-term and inexpensive improvements such as leading pedestrian intervals, reductions in signalized crossing speeds, and a citywide slower speed limit in school zones would prioritize pedestrians, save the lives of children and seniors, and get New York City back in the forefront of planning streets for safety.

Greater safety helps more New Yorkers feel at ease riding on our streets. As the city's bike network matures, a large-scale public bike-share system is a no brainer. Bike-sharing weaves cycling into the larger transportation network. In Paris, Velib tripled cycling in a few months with 20,000 bikes spread over 1,400 stations. Montrealers took more than a million rides on Bixi in fewer than six months, and similar gains have been repeated around the globe. The same explosive growth would happen in New York overnight, if Mayor Bloomberg backed bike-share in a big way. Seventy-four percent of trips here are five miles or less, meaning they're very bikeable and easily converted to bike-share trips. If he builds it, they will come.

The same is true of new and better bike facilities. Since the city installed the Ninth Avenue cycle track, biking on the West Side has gotten safer, and so has walking. In Brooklyn, the Kent Avenue protected path is having an identical effect. Traffic-protected bike lanes on Queens Boulevard, through upper Manhattan, down the Upper West Side, and all along the East Side -- where there is a dearth of safe space for cyclists -- would encourage thousands more New Yorkers to ride.

Mayor Bloomberg is a MetroCard guy, but it's much easier to spot him on the subway than riding the bus. That should change in the next four years. Although 2.4 million people ride New York City Transit buses each weekday, the bus system is the city's most underperforming transportation resource. Improvements like pre-paid boarding and signal priority, which have been installed along Fordham Road in the Bronx, could speed service on bus routes around the city. And a true Bus Rapid Transit network, with dedicated lanes for buses and level boarding for passengers, would add another dimension to our transit system. For a fraction of the cost of subway line construction, buses could move millions, if the mayor throws his weight behind BRT.

Mayor Mike has a lot on his plate in the coming weeks, months and years. But if he wants to keep New York City moving toward a sustainable future and shore up his legacy as the Livable City mayor, then safer streets, robust bike-share and better buses are the fastest way to get there.

The deaths of Vionique Valnord and Drana Nivac may spur movement to reevaluate procedures employed to gather DWI blood evidence. What took so long? Photos via New York Times

It took five hours to get a blood sample from Kevin Spellman, the NYPD detective who reportedly stumbled out of his government-leased Chevy Malibu after hitting 67-year-old Bronx grandmother Drana Nikac last week. Even so, officials said Spellman was found to have a blood alcohol level of .21. As with the Andrew Kelly case, the lag time between the arrest and obtaining blood evidence was heavily scrutinized by the media, perhaps putting pressure on Commissioner Kelly to act.

"I feel it is extremely possible to speed up the process and can say the DA offices are very interested in working with the Police Department to do so," says Joseph McCormack, chief of the Vehicular Crimes Bureau of Bronx DA Robert Johnson's office. "There are also some legal changes that would help."

One proposed measure supported by McCormack would remove the state requirement that a doctor be present to supervise blood withdrawals. In 2002, 91-year-old former Olympian Jack Shea was killed in Saranac Lake by a driver who was indicted for vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and DWI. Charges were ultimately dropped after courts ruled blood evidence inadmissible based on the fact that, since there was no doctor on duty at the small clinic where Shea and the driver were taken after the crash, the sample was drawn by an EMT. Appellate judges in the Shea case, according to the bill, "called on the legislature to amend the statute to remedy what they saw as an unnecessary restriction in the law."

McCormack and Nassau prosecutor Maureen McCormick are also working on a proposal to remove the up-front warrant requirement in cases of death or serious injury where there is probable cause for DWI. Such procedure is common in other states, says McCormick: "There is no constitutional issue of self-incrimination, which applies only to statements. Blood is physical evidence and subject to a different analysis. The trial judge would review the arresting officer's assertion of probable cause during pre-trial hearings and if there was not sufficient probable cause to take the evidence it would be suppressed."

Both stress that altering current warrant protocol would enhance the ability of police and prosecutors to gather crucial evidence, but would not change evidentiary requirements.

"These are the exact same circumstances under which blood can be drawn now," McCormick says. "The only change is that instead of precious time being taken up front for a judge to review the probable cause -- while the BAC evidence is literally disappearing -- the judicial review would take place pre-trial, when time is no longer such a critical issue."

On the subject of time, one can't help but wonder of Commissioner Kelly's new committee: What took so long? It's common knowledge among police, for example, that it is to their advantage to refuse breath tests if suspected of DWI. Did two more innocent people have to die -- and at the hands of NYPD officers -- for officials to address such a blatant systemic shortcoming?

When will pedestrians and cyclists be able to feel safe and secure on New York City streets? Photo: Bryan Goebel.

In a recent interview with Streetsblog, Tompkins evokes "Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs," a traditional marketing and psychology concept, to explain why ensuring public safety was the crucial first step in the renaissance of Times Square, and a pre-requisite for reclaiming sections of Broadway for pedestrians and public space.

You need to take care of the basics of comfort and security first before you can even think about anything else. That played out with respect to nature and parks, but wasn't really playing out in the streets and sidewalks. I think not only in Times Square and in New York City, but in a bunch of places... we've been paying attention to that. And that's been the paradigm shift that's driving a lot of this.

Tompkins' assessment has important implications for the movement to tame the streets. If establishing basic security is a fundamental prerequisite for widespread public use of any space, what about creating order and safety on our streets?

Crime and the perception of disorder have plummeted in public spaces like parks, squares, and sidewalks. But it is abundantly clear to anyone who bicycles, walks or drives in New York City that this isn’t true in the streets. Speeding and dangerous driving are epidemic. This perception is backed by study after study and by the reality that thousands of cyclists and pedestrians are struck every year. The dangerous chaos on the streets also means very few children or older people feel comfortable bicycling, and only a small portion of people who consider cycling actually ride regularly.

It will take decades before the Department of Transportation can re-engineer most of the city's big streets for cyclists and pedestrians. Even then, laws must be enforced. New York City has changed the equation in parks and on the sidewalks. What about the streets?

Image: WABC

Kevin Spellman, a 22-year department veteran, was taken into custody after the deadly 6:30 a.m. accident at W. 232nd St. and Kingsbridge Ave., police said.

Spellman, 42, was driving south when his 2009 Chevrolet Impala slammed into the unidentified woman. She was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital.

Like Andrew Kelly, the officer who killed Brooklyn pedestrian Vionique Valnord four weeks ago, Spellman reportedly refused a Breathalyzer test. The News says Spellman "was not immediately charged," though NY1 says he was "taken into custody for DWI." WABC says there may have been two victims.

Much of the answer, says Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former Baltimore cop, boils down to the way police perceive their work:

Photo: Wiley Norvell.

The NYPD fails to enforce traffic crime in part because the NYPD does not track traffic crime. And part of the reason the NYPD doesn't track traffic crime is because deterring it doesn't bring the same clear rewards as more traditional law enforcement.

"It doesn't draw on the skills police see themselves as having. It is annoying and time-consuming for officers to do traffic stops," Moskos says. "Partly because the people you are helping aren't there to appreciate how you are helping them. There is not much gratification for traffic work on a personal or professional level, because the people you are helping are not there to thank you."

To make the benefits of law-abiding behavior behind the wheel more apparent, perhaps a good first step would be to strengthen the NYPD's working relationships with advocates for street safety. (Case in point: San Francisco's new police chief, George Gascon, said he would consider creating a liaison to cyclists in an interview with Streetsblog San Francisco last month.)

Drawing on the "broken windows" school of policing that NYPD has famously employed for two decades as a core strategy to deter crime, Singer notes that New York's streets will remain hazardous as long as motorists perceive the consequences of reckless driving to be arbitrary and rare:

Applying the rigor of the Broken Windows Theory to traffic enforcement would change the way the NYPD measures and deters traffic crime. The new regime would end the practice of consistently ignoring moving violations spotted through the patrol car window. But more importantly, as the application of Broken Windows did with street crime, it would indicate to drivers that they cannot get away with it, that the lawlessness police ignored in the past will no longer be tolerated in the present.

"There is no question about it, you would have to do this on a regular basis, almost consistent basis, to be effective," says Lou Riccio, Commissioner at the NYC Department of Transportation during the Dinkins administration. Riccio was one of several traffic experts interviewed for the "Executive Order" report. "That's the problem with enforcement, it is random. [Behavioral psychologist B.F.] Skinner said [you need] random rewards and certain punishments. What we do is no rewards and random punishments, and they may actually exacerbate the problem. If [drivers] get caught, they think it's just the bad luck of the draw. And therefore they don't change their behavior."

A revised law attaches a stiff fine to the type of carelessness that caused the deaths of two children in Chinatown, but it's up to NYPD to make it stick.

The obvious question: What good is it to jack up idling fines, even by a factor of 50, when police can't be counted on to ticket for traffic fatalities? That's where Council Member Dan Garodnick comes in. Last year he introduced legislation that would allow Traffic Enforcement Agents to issue idling tickets using their hand-held computers. The bill stalled some time ago, but a Garodnick spokesperson says it hasn't been forgotten. Since learning that such a change can be handled administratively, Garodnick's office has been waiting for NYPD to carry it out.

Streetsblog has word that the department has completed programming and testing the hand-held units, and now plans to begin training agents, though no timetable was available.

"Obviously it's still something we'd like to see done," Garodnick's spokesperson said, adding that unattended vehicles should be covered under the new protocol. At $250 a pop, it probably wouldn't take many tickets before companies start telling drivers to take two seconds to shut down their trucks.

As if constant engine noise, gratuitous horn honking, booming stereos and screeching car alarms weren't enough of a collective imposition on millions of New Yorkers, NYPD is about to escalate the street-level aural arms race with the "Rumbler," a souped-up siren designed primarily to pierce the cocoon of obliviousness enshrouding city motorists.

Expected to be installed in over 100 police vehicles this week, the Rumbler emits a low-frequency signal transmitted through subwoofers similar to those used by car audio enthusiasts. According to manufacturer Federal Signal, the siren has "the distinct advantage of penetrating solid materials allowing vehicle operators and nearby pedestrians to FEEL the sound waves."

"In other words," says Richard Tur, founder of Queens-based org NoiseOFF, "this ear-splitting noise will be heard and felt by motorists, pedestrians and people in their own homes at a level that can cause permanent hearing damage and seriously disrupt their lives."

As noted on the NoiseOFF website, Federal Signal warns Rumbler users to wear ear protection to guard against hearing loss. Yet, says Tur: "The NYPD purchased and installed the equipment with no oversight, no public hearings, and with no evident liability for the massive noise pollution they are about to inflict on New Yorkers, all in the name of public safety."

Though a 2007 article in the Times, when the department was testing the Rumbler, at least touched on the possible downsides ("To experience it is to feel a little earthquake beneath one’s feet"), media have largely treated this week's roll out as a novelty.

"People assume that noise pollution is an irritant or an annoyance," Tur says, "but noise pollution is a public health issue, and it is adversely affecting residents."

There is little doubt in these quarters that excessive traffic noise poses a significant hazard, though Streetsblog regular ddartley comments that his experience with the Rumbler -- at least from a few stories up -- hasn't been all bad.

I was worried when I heard that some ambulances in NYC were Rumblers. The low frequencies are audible up in our apartment, but are not ear-splitting, adrenalin-spiking terrors, like all the higher-frequency sirens are. If emergency vehicles would rely almost exclusively on the Rumbler and not the high frequency sirens, perhaps (PERHAPS!) that would actually be a public health improvement?

Another consideration: When police worry about drivers not clearing a path, is it because their sirens are insufficient, or because the street is so packed with other cars that there is hardly anywhere to go?

Ke Hai Du. Photo: Daily News

In the unofficial battle for the most irresponsible, over-the-top media endorsement of motorist entitlement, the Daily News took the trophy this morning, declaring that drivers are within their rights to run down human beings who stand between their vehicles and on-street parking.

To many people accustomed to the norms of civilized society, this would seem a clear case of assault, if not something more serious. But to the News it's a game, which the victim rightfully lost when he challenged the "finders keepers" rule -- or, as News editors put it, "a basic and inviolable tenet of the universe."

What Du did is right up there with stealing a taxi from the person who hailed it, or bringing 15 items to the "10 items or less" register, or stopping at the top of a subway stairway to read e-mail, or backing up in an E-ZPass lane.

The lesson is clear: Park your carcass in a parking space, and you may end up as road kill.

See any victims here? Neither does NYPD. Photo: Daily News

Despite the carnage and eyewitness accounts, none of which appear contradictory, NYPD told the Queens Courier the driver would face no charges:

According to police, the driver "had a clean license;" he was neither arrested nor issued any summons. “We weren’t there to witness an infraction,” the police source said.

This case again plainly exposes the hypocrisy in how city law enforcers handle cases involving drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, depending on the identity of the "victim."

Recall that Queens pedestrian Max Kim-Bee was criminally charged earlier this year after a driver who nearly ran him down said Kim-Bee somehow damaged his car. This arrest, which occurred several hours after the incident, was based solely on the driver's claims to police. Not only were no cops present, there were no corroborating witnesses.

So: Bloody bodies littering the ground yards away from a smashed automobile? Nothing NYPD can do. A pedestrian injured your car, you say? The cops are on the case.

Imagine all crimes were treated this way. "I'm sorry your son was murdered, ma'am, but since we didn't witness an infraction, there's really nothing to investigate." Or, "There were no police officers in the area when the crane fell, prosecutors said, and no charges are expected in light of the operator's clean record."

A grisly scene. Multiple innocent victims disfigured. Lives disrupted. Families terrorized. How on earth, Ray Kelly, does this not qualify as violent crime?

The debut Streetfilms Shortie caught an errant scooter blocking a bike lane. This time it's New York's Finest, camped out in the Manhattan Bridge bike path at Canal and Chrystie.

A half-step forward, two steps back.

We've posted many times on NYPD bus lane abuse, so it's nice to have this reader-submitted shot. This scofflaw driver was tagged Monday evening on E. 57th Street between Madison and Fifth -- just in time for bus passengers to witness a rare act of traffic law enforcement.

With new MTA chief Jay Walder citing bus lane blockage as a top priority, hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more of this. Who knows, maybe there's even an order of concrete on the first 100 days' agenda.

The NYPD's 94th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is working hard to build on its reputation for being New York City's most infamous bike thieves. Too much demand for bike parking in the neighborhood? "I know what to do," says the 94's commanding officer Dennis M. Fulton. "Bust out the circular saw!"

This time Greenpoint resident Ben Running caught the whole thing on video tape. Running says the confiscated bicycles seemed to be in use:

They didn’t look like beat up bikes that had locked up there forever — they looked like they were being used,” said Ben Running, a Greenpoint resident and cyclist who filmed police removing the bikes from a street sign near the corner of North Eighth Street. “Bikes shouldn’t be removed without some kind of notice.

Yesterday we saw what it looks like when police value pedestrian safety and enforce the integrity of the crosswalk. That's how they roll in Sacramento. Here in New York, the NYPD's priorities are a little different.

Clarence Eckerson recently shot this clip at the intersection of Canal and Lafayette. As you can see, an officer crossing the street with other pedestrians noticed a vehicle blocking the box (and a bike lane). Instead of giving the driver a summons, he proceeded to hold up everyone who had the right of way and wave the car through the crosswalk, directly into the path of at least one person on foot. All in a day's work for New York's finest.

Photo: Staten Island Advance.

Staten Island's newest speed trap is snaring unsuspecting drivers who must drop from a highway speed of 50 mph to 30 mph on the off-ramp, to a 20-mph crawl outside a school zone off the South Avenue exit of the Staten Island Expressway.

Police have been issuing summonses to lead-footed drivers who missed or ignored the new diamond-shaped yellow signs alongside Goethals Road North in Graniteville, where the new Staten Island School of Civic Leadership for grades K-8 opened earlier this month.

The tickets were given out as part of a targeted enforcement initiative, police said. While officers won't be outside the school every day, it will be on their rotating list of "hot spots," because of the nature of the school zone, and because a pedestrian was hit on the street in the past.

So, enforcing the speed limit near an area swarming with kids -- everyone can get behind that, right? Not if you identify with those "unsuspecting drivers" more than the K-8 students who have to navigate the streets near their school. Proving that no form of traffic enforcement can avoid scorn from a certain subset of motorists, many Advance commenters take the speed trap as evidence of a city campaign to "milk the taxpayer."

As irresponsible as it may be to call speed enforcement a revenue-generating exercise, some of the complainers kind of have a point. This stretch of Goethals Road North is definitely sending some mixed signals. Those 20 mph school zone signs compete for drivers' attention with huge green highway signs on a street that looks designed for maximal vehicular flow. The stepped-up enforcement is great, and let's hope the cops keep it up, because the students at the School of Civic Leadership need it. They also need a street designed to put drivers on notice that doing 40 is totally wrong and unacceptable.

Traffic Enforcement for Bicyclist Safety from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.

This amazing video, via Chicago Bicycle Advocate, was produced for the Chicago Police Department to educate drivers, cyclists and officers on traffic laws pertaining to bikes.

Considering the consistent disregard and hostility projected by New York's Finest, that such videos exist (San Francisco has one too) is remarkable enough. But here, interspersed with horror stories from civilian cyclists, we have actual police officers -- close to a dozen are listed in the credits -- instructing their colleagues not just to enforce the law, but to treat bike riders with respect as rightful users of the road.

After a primer on how to fill out cyclist-involved crash reports, for example, the narrating officer gives advice on cyclist interviews. Given that a cyclist may be suffering from shock after a crash, he says: "You may need to follow up the next day, or talk with them after a trip to the emergency room." Imagine.

Does anyone know of other U.S. cities with similar police training materials? Will New Yorkers ever see the day when an NYPD officer publicly says something like, "The public counts on us to keep the roads safe, and to protect those who are at the greatest risk"?

Police chief George Gascón, center, fields a question from Streetsblog's Bryan Goebel. Photo: Michael Rhodes.

Gascón goes on the record with positions on speed cameras, pedestrian and cyclist safety, and police chases. He says traffic enforcement resources should be allocated to the most hazardous areas, and he'll consider appointing a liaison to address the concerns of cyclists. You don't hear him commit to lowering speed limits or rotating cops through bike patrol duty, but you do get a feel for how he views traffic enforcement and the responsibilities of different road users.

As Bryan notes, Gascón's willingness to sit for an interview stands in marked contrast to his predecessor, Heather Fong, "who often steered clear of reporters, and ignored efforts to establish closer working relationships with transit advocates." By fielding questions about traffic enforcement, Gascón is sending the message that street safety is worth his time and attention.

Here in New York, we have yet to see a comparable level of seriousness about street safety from Ray Kelly or NYPD's public information office. This week, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne has not returned requests for comment, submitted by fax and email, about the fact that traffic fatalities in New York City are on the rise. While every other city agency Streetsblog has dealt with returns phone calls and provides statements on the record, the NYPD has ignored our every request for information beyond the most basic facts about traffic collisions. This is entirely consistent with the public statements on traffic crime from Gascón's counterpart, Ray Kelly.

Shown documentation last month that motorists commit traffic violations virtually unchecked on city streets, Kelly gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug, citing the number of tickets NYPD hands out. No word on whether those tickets actually deterred dangerous driving, or whether Kelly has given a moment's pause to the idea that we can measure the rate of traffic crime as we do violent crime, and track progress on safety accordingly.

Not that the commissioner isn't a voluble fellow. If you do score 30 minutes of face time with Kelly, just stick to questions about neckwear, like the Times did a few days ago, and you'll get an earful.

Transportation Alternatives documented failure-to-yield violations at the rate of 24 per hour, per intersection. Photo: TA

Transportation Alternatives is out with a new report today, "Chaos to Compliance" [PDF], documenting the sky-high rate of moving violations on city streets, and the NYPD is sticking to its script. Here's the police response to TA's report, which appeared in the Post:

"Contrary to the report, the NYPD posts traffic enforcement resources where they are needed most," said Inspector Edward Mullen. "Traffic related fatalities in New York City are down 15.5% so far this year, and down by more than 35% since the Bloomberg administration took office in 2002."

"We expect to end the year with fewer than 260 traffic-related fatalities compared to 393 in 2001, and 1,360 in 1929, when highest number of traffic-related fatalities was recorded," he added.

But there's not much evidence to support the implication that NYPD has caused the decline in traffic deaths (going eighty years back, no less), as opposed to changes in street engineering or advances in emergency care. "The fact is, NYPD doesn't know the violation rates for the most dangerous driving behaviors," said TA's Wiley Norvell. "They don't know how many drivers are speeding, running red lights, or failing to yield. Because they don't, it's impossible to attribute New York City's decline in traffic fatalities to enforcement."

To get an accurate sense of whether enforcement is deterring dangerous driving, police first need to measure the rate of compliance with traffic laws. How do you do that? Chaos to Compliance suggests it's not that complicated.

TA stationed observers at four intersections during the morning and evening rush. At each intersection, two people stood at fixed points and catalogued the number and type of violations that occurred at pre-determined locations.

Here's what they tallied at 96th Street and Broadway:

• An average of 117 violations an hour
  
• Drivers disregarding traffic signals 44 times an hour -- a total of 350 incidents
  
• Drivers disregarding traffic signs 23 times an hour -- a total of 180 incidents
  
• Drivers disregarding roadway markings 16 times an hour -- a total of 127 incidents
  
• Drivers failing to yield to pedestrians 14 times an hour -- a total of 113 incidents
  

Equipped with information samples like this, NYPD could deploy its traffic enforcement resources more effectively and bring the same level of rigorous analysis to traffic violations that the agency has used to reduce violent crime the past two decades.

NYPD's TrafficStat program, which is presumably what Inspector Mullen was referring to when he said that police deploy "traffic enforcement resources where they are needed most," identifies problem areas where crashes tend to occur but doesn't capture any data on actual violations. Meanwhile, as TA reported in Executive Order, NYPD has abandoned the practice of accident-prone location deployment, a metrics-based enforcement strategy the agency could quickly re-adopt. NYPD's public information office has not returned Streetsblog's inquiry as to whether police intend to bring the practice back.

While the candidates for Manhattan DA pledge to reduce vehicular crime and increase pedestrian safety, the NYPD's commitment to those goals is still an open question. All we can say is that they won't acknowledge the lawlessness on city streets, and they don't appear interested in measuring the type of behavior that causes 260 traffic deaths every year. "It’s frustrating that we’re not using data in an informed way to bring those deaths down to zero," said Norvell.

The cab driver clearly failed to yield to pedestrians as he turned from Lexington Avenue into the crosswalk on 112th Street, and multiple witnesses cited in news reports estimated that the cab was traveling at least 10 mph over the speed limit as it approached the intersection. The cabbie also had a hands-free cell phone attachment dangling from his head, which he may or may not have been using at the time of the crash, depending on whether you trust the judgment of police or the accounts of eyewitnesses. And he would have left the scene if not for the efforts of a few good Samaritans who managed to stop him.

Much of the responsibility for investigating crashes and determining criminality lies with New York's district attorneys. All three Democratic candidates for Manhattan DA, who are facing off in the primary on September 15, have said they will take traffic crime seriously once in office. (Read Streetsblog's interview with candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder and watch highlights from June's traffic justice debate to find out more about where they stand.) Earlier this week, candidate Richard Aborn became the first to pledge to reduce vehicular violence in his official campaign platform:

Transportation Safety

Almost everyone in New York knows that the homicide rate in New York, thanks to effective policing and prosecution, has declined to around 500 homicides a year from a peak of more than 2200 homicides in 1990. And yet few people know that, shockingly, the traffic fatality rate in New York is almost as high -almost 300 lost lives a year. As District Attorney, I commit to dedicating appropriate resources to ensure that traffic fatalities become as rare as bike lanes used to be.

Aborn has previously stated that he believes the Rule of Two is ready to be challenged in court. The addition to his campaign platform echoes his piece in the Huffington Post last week vowing to focus resources on preventing traffic deaths.