Testify Tomorrow for Stronger Laws to Deter Deadly Driving

One week after nine-year-old Ibrihim Ahmed was struck and killed by Alexander Aponte, who was driving without a valid license, the City Council’s Public Safety Committee is taking a step to strengthen the inadequate penalties in place to deter reckless driving. Readers will recall that Aponte got off with a charge of driving with a suspended license, which carries minimal fines and seldom results in any jail time.

The committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on Resolution 145, which calls upon Albany "to address the legal loopholes that allow dangerous and
deadly drivers to drive under the influence of drugs or to drive with a
suspended or revoked license."

You can testify at the hearing, which begins at 1:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall.

  • Ian Turner

    Let’s get this on the Streetsblog calendar.

  • I hate to be a contrarian, but:

    That resolution can be misleading; “address the legal loopholes that allow dangerous and deadly drivers to drive under the influence of drugs or to drive with a suspended or revoked license” implies that all drivers who are driving “with a suspended or revoked license” should be presupposed to be “dangerous and deadly,” which is not the case.

  • sure, not all folks driving on suspended or revoked licenses should be prejudged as dangerous and deadly. same goes for drunk or high drivers. the same could just as easily be said about completely unlicensed drivers. a more legitimate complaint, less susceptible to the good ol reductio ad absurdem critique, is that not all dangerous and deadly drivers are either intoxicated or have compromised driving privileges. that’s the real problem yo.

  • I ran down on my lunch hour thinking I might have time to make some remarks but didn’t. However Mary Beth Kelly was in the chamber, planning on speaking (had the pleasure of meeting her briefly outside) and another woman (whom she seemed to know) who looked like she was planning on speaking was holding a copy of Tom Vanderbilt’s “Traffic.”

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