Off-duty officer Raphael Ospina and two passengers were injured when he crashed his Chrysler on the sidewalk in front of Tiffany's in Manhattan. Possibly due to the late hour, no pedestrians were hurt. Photo: Daily News

Following two incidents late last year in which off-duty cops killed pedestrians, then refused to submit to Breathalyzer tests, Commissioner Ray Kelly worked with city district attorneys to expedite the collection of blood evidence from motorists arrested on suspicion of driving drunk. But as civil service newsweekly The Chief-Leader reported after the deaths of Vionique Valnord and Drana Nikac, Kelly has yet to match the department's zero tolerance drug abuse policy with one that addresses cops who drink and drive.

The paper speculates that Kelly's inaction may stem from drinking as an accepted facet of cop culture, despite the fact that driving drunk can be at least as harmful as the use of illegal drugs:

[W]hile it's legal to drink, it isn't to then drive when under the influence. And those who do so are committing at least as serious a crime as those who use cocaine or heroin; in some cases more so, since the NYPD's one-strike-and-you're-out drug policy makes no distinction between those who abuse them without leaving their homes but come up dirty on a subsequent test and those who are out in the street presenting a potential menace whether behind the wheel or not.

When an off-duty homicide detective killed himself last September by slamming into a garbage truck on the BQE, union reps called for NYPD to change the way it handles detectives' shift assignments in hopes of reducing drinking and driving during off-hours. To our knowledge Kelly himself has taken no action to put a stop to a chronic problem that every day endangers the lives of city police officers and civilians alike. 

Photo: Newsday

Beck has a lot of work to do. His department has a rich history of shabby cyclist treatment, and there is skepticism that Beck's promises will bring about the culture shift many feel will be necessary before LAPD's relationship with bike riders truly improves.

At least Beck is willing to come to the table. As in Los Angeles, cyclists in New York are routinely ignored and harassed by police, yet there is no sign that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has any qualms with the status quo. Kelly's subordinates freely espouse the department's "move traffic first" mantra, and just don't seem to get it when confronted with questions concerning pedestrian and cyclist safety. Though cyclist fatalities dropped in 2009, pedestrian deaths are up. Too bad New York's top cop puts no stock in data that exposes the rampant, preventable traffic crime that leads to countless deaths and injuries.

It's not too late for Kelly to apply the same rigor to street safety that has brought other crime rates to historic lows. In addition to measuring the rate of traffic crime, he could get behind efforts like "Hayley and Diego's Law." If nothing else, Kelly could engender a lot of goodwill by breaking NYPD's silence when it comes to fatality investigations. Releasing that information would increase public knowledge of why traffic deaths happen, help save lives, and send the signal that he takes bike-ped safety seriously.

Karen Schmeer. Photo via NYT

One of the men in the car, 25-year-old David McKie, was arrested after fleeing the vehicle. He was charged with second-degree murder. Two other suspects are still at large. The three were reported to have stolen some over-the-counter allergy medication from a nearby CVS pharmacy. The Daily News reports:

A police source said cops tried to pull over the suspects minutes before the crash, but they lost the car momentarily.

When they caught up with the vehicle, it had already struck Schmeer, as well as several other vehicles.

Witnesses at the scene painted a slightly different picture, saying they saw the car weaving in and out of traffic going north on Broadway with a squad car with lights and sirens blaring in hot pursuit.

According to the NYPD Patrol Guide, "Department policy requires that a vehicle pursuit be terminated whenever the risks to uniformed members of the service and the public outweigh the danger to the community if [the] suspect is not immediately apprehended." The Times' coverage of Schmeer's death takes the chase scenario as a point of fact, but does not indicate that the paper attempted to get an explanation as to why officers would be engaged in a high-speed pursuit on the Upper West Side at dinner time on a Friday.

Of the Times story, an NYPD spokesperson told Streetsblog: "That report is wrong." The spokesperson declined to elaborate and directed us to submit further questions via email. NYPD has not replied to email queries about the circumstances of the crash and whether police violated protocol. Neither Commissioner Ray Kelly nor Mayor Bloomberg have apparently seen it necessary to address the witness accounts of a high-speed pursuit.

Schmeer's death marks the latest in a string of deadly crashes in which pursuing officers are suspected or known to be involved. Last spring, Streetsblog talked to several witnesses who said a car thief was fleeing police when he hit and killed 38-year-old Greenpoint mother Violetta Kryzak. The commanding officer of Brooklyn's 94th Precinct said the department had "no indication" that a pursuit occurred.

One year ago, a video camera captured an apparent Staten Island chase that led to the death of a couple with young sons. "At no time was this vehicle pursued," said an NYPD spokesperson.

Last August, 27-year-old restaurant worker and father of three Pablo Pasares was run down in Long Island City by a man after an alleged drug buy. Detectives "were chasing the guy," said one witness. "He lost control." In this case, police apparently did not deny a chase had taken place.

And just last week, cops embarked on a "high-speed, multi-collision chase" through Red Hook and Brooklyn Heights that, miraculously, ended up damaging only a few parked cars and the police cruiser.

The list goes on, and the question remains: How can NYPD support its claim that it did nothing wrong when witnesses say otherwise?

Photo: Newsday

At least one elected, long-time distracted driving foe Felix Ortiz, Assembly member from Brooklyn, is also on board. So far it looks as if the effort is getting results.

[T]he DMV confirmed it was already looking into stricter regulations for the entire state.

"It's currently under review," said DMV spokesman Ken Brown. "Clearly, we recognize that distracted driving is a safety issue."

Asked if the DMV was mulling added fines or points, Brown said, "The entire section of the regulation is being reviewed."

This is welcome news, and it would be nice to see Kelly throw his weight behind other enforcement measures, like "Hayley and Diego's Law" and traffic cameras, which would also go a long way toward improving street safety. But so far, he hasn't shown much inclination to take overall reckless driving as seriously as distracted driving.

Cadets will have a hard time getting to New York City's next police academy, now under construction, without driving. Image: NYT/Michael Fieldman Architects and Perkins+Will.

The facility will be designed to attain a LEED Silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The press release touted its green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and energy-saving building envelopes. Good stuff. But how green can this complex be when it also contains a 3,000-space parking garage?

The current police academy, located on East 20th Street, is a convenient walk from the subway at Union Square or 23rd Street. At the new site, the nearest subway station is more than a mile away. Those 3,000 parking spaces will be a huge enticement for police recruits to drive to the academy, and they'll come at enormous taxpayer expense.

Consider: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx plans to spend $25.7 million (including $19.8 million in tax-free stimulus bonds) to build a 605-space garage. Assuming the costs at College Point are roughly the same, that works out to more than $125 million upfront for the police academy garage. Then there's all the taxpayer money that will go into keeping this parking deck clean, well-lit, and operating smoothly. The price tag varies, but running a commercial garage costs in the neighborhood of $500 to $800 annually per space, according to the Victoria Transport Policy Institute [PDF]. Let's be conservative with this NYPD garage and go with $300 per space each year. If you're talking about a 3,000-space garage -- and we are -- that's about $1 million to publicly finance driving to the new "state-of-the-art" police academy. Every year, forever.

NYPD's public information office didn't have an answer when we asked whether parking will be free at the new academy. We have to surmise that it will be. The city, after all, only expects 2,000 recruits in each class. A 3,000-space garage does not appear to be designed, then, with inducements to carpool or take transit in mind.

If the city did put a price on parking at the new academy, it could probably build a garage half the size of the one it's moving ahead with, according to parking experts we consulted. That's about $60 million in construction savings and at least $500,000 in annual operating savings. (Intriguingly, the EIS for this project calls for a smaller, 1,800-car garage, which raises questions about the legality of a 3,000-car garage.)

At the presser for the groundbreaking last week, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler told reporters that the city would talk to the MTA about increasing bus service to the police academy. Coming amidst a total meltdown in transit funding, the suggestion seems far-fetched. But if the city had steady revenue coming from its parking deck, it would feel a bit more plausible, and the next police academy would be significantly more green.

In handing down a prison term of 20-to-life for Auvryn Scarlett, the garbage hauler who had stopped taking his epilepsy medication before suffering a seizure behind the wheel and killing two pedestrians last year, Justice Richard Carruthers described the convicted as "a time bomb ready to explode at any moment on the streets of New York." The same could be said of the countless number of motorists roaming the city at any given moment though their licenses have been suspended or revoked due to a history of recklessness. Two such drivers killed three people in separate crashes over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Peter and Lillian Sabados. Photo via Daily News

Clearly, Powell and the Sabadoses aren't just victims of individuals, but institutional failure. Even in those relatively rare instances when the system identifies drivers who are a menace, there is no mechanism to stop them from getting right back behind the wheel. Revoking a license is no deterrent. In both cases this weekend, incarceration, or at the very least the impounding of vehicles, could have saved lives.

These crimes also expose a failure of political leadership. Regardless of the toll recidivist illegal drivers continue to exact in death and misery, Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly have shown no apparent interest. As for the City Council, a resolution urging state action was unceremoniously dismissed just days after nine-year-old Ibrihim Ahmed was killed by an unlicensed driver last January, and has not seen action since. A cursory Streetsblog archive search revealed three additional local fatalities at the hands of unlicensed drivers in the interim eleven months, including pedestrians Dorothea Wallace and 9-year-old Joshua Ganzfried.

We commented last week that, while a positive step, the relatively narrow focus of Leandra's Law leaves New Yorkers, adults and kids alike, unprotected from dangerous drivers whose negligence does not involve alcohol or drugs. As reported by Gotham Gazette, a law prompted by the death of Ibrihim Ahmed would attach stiffer penalties to the prevalent and often deadly crime of driving without a license. The bill, sponsored by Assembly Member Robert Sweeney, would classify vehicular assault and manslaughter as felonies in cases where a driver's license has been suspended or revoked. This would mark a major shift for New York State in that it would apply in instances of crashes where the driver is not under the influence.

When Alexander Aponte was charged only for driving without a license in the killing of Ahmed, we asked Queens DA Richard Brown's office for an explanation. "What we do is charge by the laws on the books," a spokesperson said. "If Albany changes the law based on a victim's injury or death, we would change the way we charge." In the absence of guidance from the mayor, police commissioner and City Council members, perhaps future Public Advocate Bill de Blasio or Manhattan DA Cy Vance could fill the void by joining Assembly Member Sweeney and others in a serious campaign to keep unlicensed drivers off our streets by adopting "Ibrihim's Law," before it's too late for someone else's child, fiance, or grandparents.

As for Allmir Lekperic, the Daily News reports that he is free to drive again. For bringing two lives to a brutal premature end, Lekperic was charged with leaving the scene and driving without a license.

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?

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?

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.

A reader sends this shot, taken at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 24th Street this afternoon. We're waiting to hear back from NYPD about whether anyone was hurt. Hopefully this will be one of the lucky cases where an out-of-control cab didn't harm anyone. And really, in the middle of Manhattan, just a short walk from Penn Station, it all boils down to pure chance. I wonder how fast a car has to travel to flip over like this. Does Ray Kelly know?

Just another city motorist breaking the law with impunity. Photo: NYT

"I don't know what they are talking about," said Kelly. "In 2007 and 2008 we issued 1.2 million moving violation summonses."

As Ben Fried reported at the time, Kelly's recitation of a gross figure means nothing without context. Executive Order author Jessie Gray Singer sent over some figures gauging the significance of that number.

• 1.2 million summonses issued by NYPD last year = 3,288 summonses a day.
• Roughly 4 million New Yorkers own cars.
  
• According to NYMTC, there are over 1.5 million daily auto trips into and out of the Manhattan CBD alone.
• A 2000 study by then-city comptroller Alan Hevesi found that city drivers run 1.23 million red lights every work day.

Given a little perspective, you can see how 1.2 million summonses stacks up when compared to the number of vehicle trips and documented (if dated) incidents of just one type of violation. Meanwhile, it appears that NYPD's concentration on cell phone use rather than speeding (195,579 vs. 75,599 summonses, respectively, in 2007) has failed to deter city cab drivers from driving while distracted.

All in all, when it comes to clamping down on traffic crime, 1.2 million summonses a year = 1 drop in the bucket.

Photo: Newsday.

New York can't add more red light cameras or install the city's first speed enforcement cameras without Albany's go-ahead. The NYPD Commissioner only gets so many chances to lobby the state legislature in a major daily, so you've got to wonder why Kelly failed to mention these life-saving technologies. Does he need a news peg? How about this: Albany expanded the city's red light camera allowance by 50 percent this session, but many dangerous intersections remain uncovered, and we still don't have a single speed enforcement camera anywhere in the city.

It's not that Kelly balks at taking on motorists' privacy. In his letter, he openly criticized a recent court decision that prevents the NYPD from attaching GPS trackers to cars without a warrant. To make the case that warrantless GPS tracking is needed, Kelly highlighted the NYPD's shrinking manpower: There are 5,000 fewer New York City cops today than there were in 2001. Well, this is the same argument one would make to get more enforcement cameras.

The way things stand, drivers can travel at life-threatening speeds on New York's neighborhood streets without any fear of enforcement. Safety cams are what you would call a "force multiplier" -- deploy them well and you don't need much manpower to make huge strides in compliance. From page 33 of Transportation Alternatives' Executive Order [PDF]:

In 2007, in Montgomery County, Maryland, six months after installation of speed cameras, the proportion of drivers exceeding speed limits by more than 10 mph declined by about 70 percent. In 2001, within 6 months of the installation of speed cameras in Washington, DC, the proportion of vehicles exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 mph declined 82 percent. “Automated enforcement is a force multiplier, recognize your force is limited and multiply its abilities with automated enforcement,” says Richard Retting, “It’s crude and almost barbaric to think about chasing people on crowded urban streets for driving fast when we can automatically deter and ticket them. Dangerous driving is reduced 80 percent just by doing that.”

These reductions in speeding can spell the difference between life and death. And on New York City streets, lawful observance of speed limits would mean major improvements in quality of life. Imagine avenues and cross-streets where cars don't constantly zoom from one red light to the next at speeds that guarantee death upon impact with the human body. What would crossing the street feel like? Or biking next to traffic? Or sitting on a stoop? How would our public spaces change?

Kelly wants to ease the way for GPS trackers on cars because, as he says, they help the police catch suspects in "bank robbery, kidnapping, murder and terrorism investigations." So, enforcing those crimes is what motivates his willingness to contest motorists' expectation of privacy. The pervasive lawlessness of urban drivers, which contributes to about 300 deaths in New York City every year, seemingly doesn't concern him. 

Last week, Streetsblog noted that Kelly doesn't appear to grasp the public safety hazard posed by dangerous urban driving any better today than he did during his first stint in charge of NYPD. We're waiting for him to prove us wrong.

Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announcing changes in NYC crime rates for 2008. The city does not track rates of traffic crime. Photo: Gothamist.

Following a rash of accidents involving pedestrians and scofflaw motorists, Kelly told the City Council Transportation Committee about a host of police actions to crack down on drivers with two or more license suspensions. He said police made 230 arrests in the past week under his new directive.

Then came the snafu. Asked about the speed limit on city streets, Kelly looked puzzled. He turned to an aide. "It's 35, isn't it?" he asked loudly. Well, no, the aide whispered. It's actually 30.

It's telling that Kelly overestimated the actual speed limit, because it suggests that the commissioner did not appreciate the public safety hazards posed by driving on crowded urban streets. The faster cars go, of course, the greater the danger, and what may feel like a safe speed to the driver may prove deadly for the pedestrian or cyclist in the vehicle's path. From page 16 of Transportation Alternatives' report, Executive Order [PDF]:

• 5 percent of people die when struck by a motorist going 20 mph
• 45 percent of people die when struck by a motorist going 30 mph
• 85 percent of people die when struck by a motorist going 40 mph
• When cars exceed 20 mph, the comfort level of cyclists and pedestrians drops significantly
• Eye contact between drivers, and between drivers and pedestrians, drops rapidly at speeds greater than 20 mph
• Driving 20 mph requires a stopping distance of 150 feet, driving 30 mph requires a stopping distance of 200 feet, driving 35 mph requires a stopping distance of 250 feet.

If Ray Kelly understands the risks of urban speeding better today than he did 16 years ago, he sure didn't let it show last week. Kelly denied all the evidence that something is broken with traffic enforcement in New York City. As TA's report documented, only one out of every 12,698 speeding violations gets caught. As injury statistics bear out, New York pedestrians are 63 percent more likely to be injured by traffic than their counterparts in London (where some residential zones have 20 mph speed limits). And as anyone familiar with New York City sidewalks can attest, reckless driving strangles quality of life by making people feel unsafe walking, biking, or venturing outside.

Let's assume that to bring some order to the lawless atmosphere on city streets, NYPD needs more manpower or greater leeway to install enforcement cameras. They're not going to get those resources if Ray Kelly can't even acknowledge that we have a problem.

State DMV data show that crashes caused by speeding are up, while enforcement of speeding violations is down. Graphic: Transportation Alternatives.

Transportation Alternatives' recent report, Executive Order [PDF], contains so much information about the state of traffic enforcement in New York, it's impossible to summarize in one post. So in the weeks ahead, Streetsblog will be taking a closer look at what's in the report and what the implications are for law enforcement.

We'll begin by noting that, so far, Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly don't appear concerned by the systemic lack of enforcement documented in Executive Order. NY1 reported their reactions:

"We have a safety record in the city that is the envy of other big cities," said Bloomberg.

"I don't know what they're talking about. In 2007 and 2008 we issued 1.2 million moving violation summonses. As the mayor said, we're at the lowest number of vehicle fatalities," said Kelly.

Has anyone ever heard Ray Kelly brag about the number of arrests for murder, rape, and assault? No. NYPD grades its performance on violent crime by tracking how much the actual crime rates have changed. Anyone with an internet connection can look up the stats for their precinct.

When it comes to deadly driving, Kelly has no data to cite. Rattling off the number of summonses proves nothing. It's like saying, "We arrested a million perps last year, the streets are safer."

It's true that traffic deaths have declined in recent years, but if Bloomberg and Kelly want to save more lives and make New York as safe as possible, they should take a good long look at Executive Order. Their replies indicate that they don't yet grasp, or care to acknowledge, the fundamental problems it identifies.

To start with, no one really knows why traffic deaths are down or whether traffic enforcement has played a role. What we do know is that the most deadly crashes -- those caused by speeding -- are on the rise.

According to state DMV statistics (available here), crashes in Manhattan due to "unsafe speed" rose from 471 in 2005 to 589 in 2007. Which is just one glaring example of why citing the number of summonses issued, as Commissioner Kelly did, fails to address the underlying question of whether traffic enforcement has actually made streets safer. Consider the following numbers from Executive Order -- this is citywide data from 2007:

• 195,579 summonses were issued for cell phone use
  
• Cell phones were the cause of 78 crashes and one death
• 75,599 summonses were issued for speeding
• Speeding was the cause of 3,080 crashes and 62 deaths
• Speeding caused over 39 times as many crashes as cell phone use
• Less than half the number of summonses issued for cell phones were issued for speeding

So, sure, NYPD is handing out lots of summonses, but not to deter the most dangerous behavior on the streets. For an agency that has built its reputation on metrics and accountability -- think CompStat -- the mismatch between enforcement practice and actual risk is remarkable.

This driver suffered a seizure, but not to worry -- the phone booth was protected. Photo: Gothamist

“We don’t want to tell anyone how to run their businesses until it impacts our business,” Mr. Kelly said.

According to data provided by the Police Department, there were 444 bank robbery attempts in 2008 -- up 57 percent from the year before.

While statistics produced by both sides show that about 90 percent of the 1,700 commercial bank branches in New York already have some form of barrier in place between tellers and would-be robbers, many small local banks -- and some chains like TD Bank -- do not have them.

The effectiveness of the barriers is questionable. Kelly himself said that last year 47 percent of bank robberies in the city occurred at banks with the barriers, while 53 percent of banks targeted by robbers did not have them. And Gregory B. Braca of TD Bank testified that the barriers can actually invite additional trouble, saying, "There is evidence that if we had to install barriers, it could increase the risk of hostage-taking and injury to our customers."

Now, for comparison's sake, consider the 444 attempted bank robberies in 2008 alongside the 15,000 injuries and 150 deaths suffered by pedestrians at the hands of New York City drivers in the average year. Many of those victims are injured and killed not in the street, but while standing on a corner, walking down a sidewalk, or having a meal inside a restaurant.

Couldn't Commissioner Kelly also advocate for additional barriers between people and outlaw drivers? "Bandit bollards" has a nice ring, doesn't it? Or, if Kelly has his way and bank barriers are eventually mandated, might NYPD redeploy officers from banks to the streets to protect pedestrians? After all, those 15,000 calls a year must also be a burden -- and much like a bank, we never know who'll be hit next.

The highest rank to be filled on Friday will be chief of transportation, a three-star bureau chief position. The commissioner has tapped Assistant Chief James Tuller, who is Hispanic, to be the first minority officer to hold that position, aides to Mr. Kelly said. 

Scagnelli, who retired a month ago, will probably be most remembered by livable streets advocates as the pioneer of TrafficStat, which some -- though not all -- credit for helping to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. While, as we understand it, the transpo chief wields limited direct power when it comes to traffic enforcement, hopefully Tuller will build on Scagnelli's record.

With NYPD Chief of Transportation Michael Scagnelli working his last day on the job today, his exit is marked by reflections on his stint at the post, speculation on who might replace him, and hope that his successor will build on his traffic safety initiatives.

In a press release issued this morning, Transportation Alternatives credited Scagnelli as the "pioneer" of TrafficStat, which, said Executive Director Paul Steely White, "set the precedent of strategically using enforcement to bring crash rates down."

"Chief Scagnelli helped battle the notion that traffic fatalities are random and unpreventable," White said.

TA also laid out enforcement improvement recommendations for the next transportation chief:

• Measure Incident Reduction, Not Summons Issued: TrafficStat currently measures traffic safety by the number of tickets issued, which can be completely unrelated to the underlying problem and rewards the writing of tickets rather than the reduction of traffic crime. Measuring the level of infraction and reduction in crashes is the only way to assess the effectiveness of enforcement.
• Reinstate Accident Prone Location Deployment: Target NYPD enforcement resources to intersections and streets with high levels of crashes.

Who Scagnelli's replacement might be, or where the department stands in the selection process, remains a mystery. The DCPI officer we spoke with yesterday said she "had no idea" if a successor had been named, and a second query has so far yielded no response. For whatever it's worth, as of three weeks ago talk around the NYPD Rant water cooler centered on current Chief of Transit James Hall. Hall's office had no comment. A call to Scagnelli's office was referred to DCPI.

Despite some very public missteps, Scagnelli will be remembered for reducing the number of deaths on New York City streets. Here's hoping that Commissioner Ray Kelly appoints someone who will take traffic enforcement, and its impact on the safety of all New Yorkers, as seriously as he did -- and then some.

Rasha Shamoon was struck riding her bike on Delancey and died of her injuries. NYPD failed to fully investigate the crash.

As you know, Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York calls for a range of projects to improve mass transit, reduce congestion and promote bicycling. The plans for transit may be stymied or delayed by the recession, but bicycling is booming in New York. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is painting bike lanes all over town, and many commuters are switching from cars to bicycles to save money, get in shape and reduce their carbon footprint.

In 2008, bicycling in New York City grew by 35%! The cycling boom means New York’s Finest must recognize the rights of bicyclists and accord them the same respect that drivers of cars, trucks and buses receive. A human being encased in two tons of steel has the same moral weight as a human being riding 25 pounds of steel, or one on foot. A recent fatal crash indicates the extent to which this is not now the case.

Early on August 6, 2008, Rasha Shamoon was riding east on Delancey Street when she was struck and killed by an SUV traveling northbound on Bowery. Police interviewed the 21-year-old driver and his two young passengers who blamed the unconscious and dying woman. No other witnesses were interviewed, even though several people reported the crash to 911. No skid marks were measured. Remarkably, although the SUV driver had six prior motor vehicle convictions, he was allowed to leave the scene after giving a statement. Shamoon, 31, a lecturer at Hunter and City colleges, was the daughter of a physician who fled tyranny in Iraq in the late 1970s. She was by all accounts a wonderful person and responsible bicyclist. Her bike had front and back running lights and was swathed in reflector tape.

There are many other examples. As bicycling becomes more prevalent in New York, police officers must thoroughly and consistently investigate all crashes. Inconsistent and incomplete reporting undermines efforts to improve the safety of city streets. At the moment, crashes caused by negligent drivers often are recorded in sketchy “aided reports.” More detailed MV-104 reports are only filed when there is physical contact between cyclist and motor vehicle. This often leaves injured cyclists with little recourse to compensation.

Breathalyzer tests should be required for all involved in a crash. Street locations and conditions should be noted so that data can be gathered to improve safety and prevent further crashes. Red light and speed cameras should be installed at dangerous intersections. The NYPD should commit to a Vision Zero policy for traffic fatalities, and thoroughly investigate all fatal crashes to determine a formal finding of cause and responsibility. Those in the wrong should be fully prosecuted. I recognize that cyclists also have a responsibility to ride safely. Transportation Alternatives is undertaking a new campaign in 2009 to encourage lawful riding on city streets, starting in Brooklyn. “Biking Rules in Brooklyn” will outline the rules of the road for bicyclists.

I realize it is not the NYPD’s problem, but I find it sadly ironic that the District Attorney goes on the warpath when a handful of people die in dramatic crane accidents in Manhattan while more than 100 pedestrians and bicyclists die on New York City streets every year.

Over the past 20 years, the NYPD has made amazing progress in making the city safer for its growing population. There is no reason why a focus on the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians should not be an objective of the next 20 years. With the population expected to increase by another million by 2030, bicycling will be a critical element of that “Greener, Greater New York.”

Thanks,
Steve Hindy

A pedestrian was struck by a sport utility vehicle on a street in Corona, Queens, on Wednesday morning, then immediately struck again by a cargo van that dragged the victim 17 miles through a web of city highways and to Coney Island in Brooklyn, the police said. The pedestrian, apparently a male, was killed.

The victim had not yet been identified, though some paperwork was found in the clothing on his body, which was wedged under the van's chassis, the police said. The authorities said there did not appear to be any criminality involved.

No "criminality" -- in other words, we can probably rule out drugs and alcohol. Few details have surfaced about the circumstances of the initial collision, other than the SUV driver opting not to leave the scene. Here's NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly on the van driver's response:

"He apparently felt something," Mr. Kelly said. "The car was not driving in a normal fashion."

Details are still emerging, but it's safe to say that at the moment of impact, the van driver was careless enough not to notice that he'd run over another human being. Shouldn't he have seen something before he "felt something"? I'm having trouble comprehending how a driver can be so disconnected from the world outside his car as to allow this to happen. Lives are at stake here. Does the NYPD not believe that drivers must stay aware of their surroundings?