Thursday’s Headlines: Speed-Limiting Tech Edition
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill last year to allow the state to require the installation of speed-limiting devices in the cars of repeat reckless drivers.
Gounardes’s bill would force drivers with at least six speeding tickets in a single year to install the tech, which he demo’d up in Albany on Tuesday. The tech would prevent the driver from going more than 5 mph over the speed limit.
You can watch the senator in action behind the wheel of a speed-limited vehicle below.
“My foot is all the way on the gas right now. I floored it and the car was not accelerating,” Gounardes says in the clip. “We’re at the speed limit. I literally have floored it and cannot go faster. … My foot is touching the floor right now.”
Gounardes also touted the bill in a City & State op-ed with his Assembly co-sponsor Emily Gallagher published on Monday.
In other news:
- From the Assignment Desk: Speaking of “speed governors,” Gov. Hochul will make a “transportation budget announcement” at M.S. 51 in Brooklyn on Thursday.
- State Sen. Zellnor Myrie is preparing to challenge Mayor Adams in the 2025 mayoral election. (NY Times, Politico)
- Missing from Myrie’s legislative accomplishments: transportation. (City & State)
- “Too often in this city, we make a crisis out of nothing, and do nothing in the face of crises.” Brooklyn B.P. Reynoso called DOT’s timeline to daylight 1,000 intersections “totally unacceptable.” (Brian Howald via Twitter)
- Why it’s taken nearly a decade to replace water pipes on two blocks on the Upper East Side. (Gothamist)
- Former Corp. Counsel Victor Kovner on Randy Mastro: “It is a serious mistake to evaluate a lawyer based on the conduct or views of his or her clients.” (City & State)
- BQE reconstruction work to last through 2028, DOT tells Restler. (amNY)
- More coverage of the charges against the man who drove into pro-Palestinian protesters in Manhattan. D.A. Alvin Bragg threw out charges against the driver’s protest marshal victim and one other demonstrator. (NY Times, Associated Press)
- DOI to probe NYPD leader’s aggressive, politicized use of social media. (Politico)
