Streetsblog New York City

A bill targeted at NYPD’s self-imposed ban on penalizing motorists for careless driving has cleared the State Senate, but awaits passage in the Assembly.

The bill would amend Hayley and Diego’s Law by explicitly stating that officers may ticket or arrest drivers who harm pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable street users whether or not they directly observe an infraction, as long as officers have reasonable cause to believe a violation was committed.

Currently, NYPD protocol prohibits precinct officers from issuing tickets under VTL 1146, the state statute that includes Hayley and Diego’s Law as well as Elle’s Law.

Hayley and Diego’s Law, which went into effect in 2010, established the offense of careless driving. It imposed penalties, including the possibility of license sanctions and jail time, upon drivers who injure or kill pedestrians and cyclists.

The bill and its amendment were introduced by Senator Dan Squadron and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh. It is named after Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez, two toddlers who were killed in 2009 by a driver whose unattended and idling van mounted a curb in Chinatown. The driver was not charged with a crime by DA Robert Morgenthau or his successor Cy Vance.

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Governor Cuomo announced Monday that new DMV drivers license rules have taken thousands of dangerous motorists off New York State roads. The changes set an important precedent by mandating the permanent revocation of driving privileges for the worst drunk driving offenders. But since the new policies apply only to DWI violations, the state is still allowing thousands of reckless drivers to keep their licenses.

Under the new rules, DMV will not relicense a driver who has five or more DWI convictions in a lifetime, or three or more DWI convictions in 25 years plus another serious driving offense, such as a fatal crash — which is not normally an offense unless the driver is impaired — or the accumulation of 20 or more license points.

Previously, repeat drunk drivers whose licenses were suspended or revoked for up to a year could be relicensed in as little as seven weeks by completing an education program, and drivers with multiple DWI convictions did not permanently lose their licenses unless they were convicted for two DWI crashes resulting in injury.

“We have seen too many times the heartbreak and tragedy that results when a driver under the influence of alcohol or drugs gets behind the wheel,” Cuomo said, via press release. “Those who have continually shown a complete lack of regard for the safety of other drivers have no place on New York’s roadways.”

Since the rules took effect last September, the DMV has reviewed 3,891 relicensing applications from drivers with more than two alcohol or drug related offenses, according to the press release. Of those, 1,658 motorists broke the five-or-more DWI convictions rule and were permanently denied relicensing. The remaining 1,506 had three or four DWI convictions, and were denied relicensing for an additional five years, after which they will get restricted licenses and will be required to use an ignition interlock device for five years.

Said Cuomo: “With more than 3,100 potentially dangerous motorists kept off the road since September, it is clear these new regulations have already been a tremendous success at protecting law-abiding New York drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.”

Though this is certainly progress for New York State, it also shows how low the bar is set. After all, under the new rules, people with as many as four DWI convictions — not people who drove drunk four times, but those who were caught, arrested, and convicted four times — continue to drive legally.

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City Council Member Jumaane Williams yesterday called on the city to take action to improve traffic safety in East Flatbush, where hundreds of people have been injured and killed by reckless drivers in less than two years.

The area targeted by Williams centers on Kings Highway, and is bounded by Utica Avenue and Ralph Avenue to the west and east, respectively, Church Avenue to the north, and Glenwood Road to the south.

Williams was joined at a press conference by neighborhood leaders and Transportation Alternatives, which released a map of severe crashes within what Williams calls the “East Flatbush Motorist Danger Zone” [PDF]. Between August 2011 and February 2013, 69 pedestrians, 24 cyclists, and 385 motorists were injured in the target area. Two pedestrians and three motorists were killed.

Among the victims of reckless drivers in East Flatbush is Denim McLean, a toddler who was fatally struck by a curb-jumping motorist in March. Nine other bystanders, including Denim’s mother, were injured in that crash. The driver was not charged with a crime by NYPD or District Attorney Charles Hynes. Williams first announced his intent to pursue measures to tame traffic in his district in the aftermath of McLean’s death.

“My primary responsibility is the safety of my constituents, and the fact is that our streets are not meeting an acceptable standard of safety,” said Williams, in a press statement issued Wednesday. “There have been multiple fatalities and hundreds of injuries in the last couple years along Kings Highway, Utica Avenue and nearby thoroughfares. We need to double our efforts to reduce speeding and related violations that endanger motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.”

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Gawker dished out some richly-deserved ridicule to Tennessee State Senator Jon Lundberg yesterday, following reports that he is co-sponsoring legislation to outlaw the specific speeding camera that nabbed him doing 60 in a 45 zone last October. Lundberg denied that the incident had any impact on his decision to sponsor in the legislation, and contested the violation to boot.

But the case is a telling one. State governments around the country have demonstrated hostility to automated enforcement programs. Twelve states specifically forbid the use of speed enforcement cameras, except in very limited circumstances, according to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association. Nine states prohibit red light cameras. Others, like New York, have yet to enact legislation that would enable cities to use these traffic enforcement tools.

A proposed ban in Iowa failed narrowly in the Senate last year and one is currently under consideration in Ohio.

The Ohio legislation, framed as a defense of due process and privacy, has received mostly favorable coverage in the press and has enjoyed the support of groups like the Ohio ACLU and Ohio PIRG. One Ohio PIRG official characterized speed cameras as “cash cows designed to rip off drivers.” Ohio Lawmaker Ron Hood went so far as to assert that red light cameras are themselves a safety hazard.

Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute on Highway Safety, told the Washington Post last year that these kind of debates tend to get distorted: “Somehow, the people who get tickets because they have broken the law have been cast as the victims.”

Lost in these debates is the fact that automated enforcement saves lives. A 2011 study by IIHS comparing cities with red light cameras to those without them found that in the 14 largest U.S. cities, the cameras reduced fatal red-light-running collisions by 24 percent. Even more impressive, they seemed to promote safe driver behavior more generally. The researchers found that cities with red light cameras saw 17 percent fewer fatal crashes at signalized intersections, per capita, than cities without cameras.

Between 2004 and 2008, that added up to 159 lives saved in those 14 cities alone. If automated enforcement had been installed in all 99 of the U.S. cities with populations over 200,000, some 815 lives would have been saved over those four years, the report found.

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A pedestrian struck by a motorist on April 1 in Bay Ridge died from her injuries. The crash occurred on a section of Fourth Avenue where DOT plans to install a pedestrian fence, and in a precinct where NYPD writes a speeding ticket once every five days.

The victim, a 30-year-old female whose name was not published, was struck by the driver of a Honda sedan as she attempted to cross mid-block on Fourth near 86th Street, according to an April 2 story from the Brooklyn Daily. The impact broke one of her arms and caused severe head trauma.

The FDNY said they took the victim to Lutheran Medical Center where she later died from her injuries.

An NYPD spokeswoman said that the driver was uninjured and remained at the scene. An investigation is ongoing, but there is no evidence of a crime.

“It looks like it was just an accident,” the spokeswoman said.

A different version of the Brooklyn Daily story first appeared in the Brooklyn Paper, which reported that the victim was transported in cardiac arrest.

Coverage of the crash makes no mention of how fast the driver was going before the collision. A pedestrian’s chance of survival when hit by a vehicle decreases dramatically as motorist speed increases. Speeding was the leading cause of NYC traffic deaths in 2012, according to DOT.

DOT is planning a slate of changes to Fourth Avenue aimed at slowing down drivers and reducing traffic injuries and deaths. According to reports, one element of the proposal is a pedestrian fence, similar to those in Midtown Manhattan, to prevent “jaywalking.”

As usual, NYPD is AWOL on traffic calming. The 68th Precinct, where this crash occurred, and where an elderly woman was killed by a driver in a Fourth Avenue crosswalk on April 30, issued just 63 speeding tickets in 2012.

Both fatalities happened in Marty Golden’s state senate district. Golden has blocked the city from implementing a speed camera pilot program, though NYPD supports automated enforcement. Golden can be reached at 718-238-6044 and @SenMartyGolden.

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There’s a tussle going on right now about how cyclists should ride on city streets. Yesterday’s Streetsblog Network post took a snapshot of this debate yesterday, excerpting the WashCycle’s response to a Sarah Goodyear piece in Atlantic Cities.

Sarah wrote that cycling is no longer a mode for daredevils and mavericks weaving through traffic. Some cities now have street infrastructure that accommodates cyclists and guards their safety. Bicycling is increasingly incorporated into the transportation system in these cities, and as such, cyclists need to follow the rules.

Few people would contest the idea that for the transportation system to function well and safely, drivers need to abide by the rules of the road. It’s obvious that when drivers break the rules, the consequences are dire, since they’re operating a heavy vehicle capable of high speeds.

But safety isn’t the only issue. The orderly functioning of our streets is also a priority of planners, and should be a priority for all of us. When the signal says walk, we ought to know that we can walk without being hit by a motorist — or a cyclist — who’s decided that the rules don’t apply to him.

“I am truly sick, at this late date, of people wanting to have it both ways: calling for protected bike lanes and a bike-share system, demanding that cops step up enforcement when it comes to cars, and then blithely salmoning up a major thoroughfare and expecting everyone look the other way,” Sarah writes. “It makes all of us look terrible and it’s a real hazard.”

She also claims that cyclists aren’t special and don’t deserve their own rules. I part ways with her there. Riding a bike doesn’t make you special because it’s badass or good for the environment. It’s special because roads designed exclusively for automobiles don’t work well for cycling. And we should advocate for rules and infrastructure that safely accommodate sustainable and efficient modes of transportation at least as much as destructive and polluting ones.

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Yesterday at about 3:30 p.m., a taxi driver struck a cyclist on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea between 16th and 17th Street. Police made two arrests at the scene, though at this time NYPD is not revealing what they were charged with.

“The front right wheel of cab had basically run over the back wheel of the bicycle,” said reader Sandy, who lives on the block and walked by the scene at about 4:00 p.m. She said the crash was in the right-most lane of Seventh Avenue, about two-thirds of the way between 17th Street and 16th Street.

FDNY says that EMS responded at 3:32 p.m. and left seven minutes later, although Sandy reports seeing an ambulance on the scene after 4:00. FDNY said that EMS did not transport anyone to a hospital.

NYPD reports that officers responded at 3:31 and made two arrests at the scene, though the Collision Investigation Squad was not involved. After 4:00, a police van arrived to assist the cruiser and officers already on the scene. According to Sandy, the handcuffed cab driver was standing by his vehicle in Seventh Avenue, which is the border between the 10th and 13th precincts. It’s not known who the other arrested individual was; Sandy said she did not see a cyclist on the scene.

We’ll update with more information as the story develops.

Update: The Home Reporter reports that the elderly victim of this crash has died.

Residents of Bay Ridge are again calling for measures to rein in reckless motorists after a Tuesday crash that sent at least one pedestrian to the hospital. The crash occurred in the district of State Senator Marty Golden, who has blocked a widely-supported speed camera program from being implemented in NYC.

Published reports say the driver of a Cadillac Escalade struck an elderly woman while making a right turn from 82nd Street onto Fourth Avenue. Brooklyn Daily reports that the victim was declared likely to die.

NYPD and FDNY had few details. The NYPD public information office said the victim was an elderly Asian female, whose identity has not been released. An FDNY spokesperson told Streetsblog responders got the call at 10:39 a.m., and said two victims were transported. FDNY had no information on the condition of either victim. WNBC was the only media outlet we found with a report that two victims were struck.

The NYPD spokesperson said no summonses were issued, and that “no criminality is suspected.”

The Brooklyn Eagle reported that Council Member Vincent Gentile was at the scene:

Gentile said he was told that the victim was in “very bad shape” and that she had been rushed by ambulance to Lutheran Medical Center. “She apparently hit her head hard on the pavement when she was hit by the car,” Gentile said.

“The pedestrian went up in the air and came back down,” said one witness, to the Home Reporter. An NYPD spokesperson told the Brooklyn Daily that police “had no evidence that the motorist was speeding or breaking any other traffic laws,” though “[w]itnesses pointed out that the woman was already in the crosswalk when struck, and state law grants right of way to pedestrians over drivers when both have the light.”

The 68th Precinct, where the crash occurred, issued just 63 speeding citations in 2012 [PDF]. Locals are pushing for improved traffic enforcement, including the use of speed cameras, on Fourth Avenue.

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Although maintaining that cameras “are never going to be a replacement for officers,” a prominent police union official told Streetsblog that he strongly supports automated enforcement. “People drive in this town with impunity,” he said. “I’ll take any help we can get at this point to try and reign in some of the problems.”

Unfortunately for New Yorkers, those words came not from Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch, but from Kristopher Baumann, Chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC.

In fact, the DC police union has been a strong supporter of the entire automated enforcement program in the District, which also targets red-light running, blocking the box, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, and failure to observe stop signs.

At a DC Council hearing last November, Baumann testified against the council’s efforts to lower fines for violators caught on camera. He implored the council “not to pander to a bunch of people that can’t control themselves behind the wheel and think it’s okay to endanger others.”

Baumann had tough words for people who oppose traffic enforcement cameras. “If they don’t like the automated cameras, follow the rules. Stop endangering other people,” he said. “The idea here is not ‘gotcha’ and we’re going to charge money. It is public safety,” he added. “These cameras do work.”

Since installing speed cameras, DC has seen an 82 percent reduction in speeding that exceeds 10 mph above the limit, according to Richard Retting, the director of safety and research for Sam Schwartz Engineering. Since DC began installing speed cameras, the number of annual traffic fatalities has dropped from 72 in 2001 to 19 last year — a decline of about 74 percent. In 2011, MPD Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier received an award from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for overseeing the nation’s biggest traffic fatality rate drop. In NYC, which has 150 red light cameras but no speed cameras, traffic deaths fell 30 percent in the same period.

The DC police union supports speed cams, according to Baumann, because MPD doesn’t have enough manpower to enforce traffic laws without the automated help. “We’re not out there to enforce the laws, and when that happens, people start disregarding the laws,” Baumann told the council. “That means we have to rely on the cameras.”

When Streetsblog asked if he thought the cameras were being used as an excuse not to hire needed officers, Baumann was unequivocal. “No,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s being used as an excuse.”

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If you walk on New York City streets (or frankly anywhere in the U.S.), you’re well aware of how much unlawful and dangerous driving happens on nearly every block: red light running, speeding, double-parking, you name it.

I first moved to NYC in 1991, and one thing that seems to have gotten much worse since then is the percentage of drivers who fail to signal their turns. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been walking or bicycling and nearly been hit by drivers who didn’t use their directionals. Anecdotally, I would estimate that about 25 or 30 percent of drivers don’t signal.

So I set out to put my theory to the test where I live in Jackson Heights, Queens, taping the first 100 turning drivers I saw. I won’t spoil the final count, but this video is more evidence of the poor quality of driving across the city. Failing to use blinkers makes it hard for walkers, bikers, and other motorists to anticipate a driver’s behavior — this is basic Driver’s Ed, people — but so many people just don’t do it.

Every week we read horrible stories of drivers crashing into pedestrians or mounting sidewalks — and yet hardly anyone is ever charged or even issued a ticket. NYPD could be issuing plenty of tickets for drivers failing to signal turns on just about any block at anytime. They could start a crackdown tomorrow, it doesn’t require more legislation. It doesn’t require an officer to be stationed in a car with a radar gun. Just stand on the corner and pull people over. Simple.

NYPD credits cracking down on small crimes with helping to dramatically lower the city’s overall crime rate. If we started to show less tolerance for “smaller” infractions, might drivers in NYC eventually change their overall driving habits?