NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch reiterated at a Council hearing on Thursday that she must give cyclists criminal summonses for breaking traffic laws because, unlike drivers, they have no driver's license to suspend for repeat infractions.
But that strategy is a misunderstanding of the efficacy of licenses in the first place: drivers with suspended licenses continue to drive ... and kill.
Yet Tisch continues to defend her new approach to cyclists. At the Council hearing on Thursday, Tisch again argued for criminal summonses against cyclists who commit minor traffic infractions because license suspension isn’t an option.
"Our previous approach [i.e. giving cyclists regular traffic tickets for regular traffic violations] was not working," she said. "B-summonses returnable to traffic court are a part of a regulatory framework designed for licensed car drivers: If you ignore a B-summons, you have your license suspended."
E-bike riders, she continued, "want a consequence-free environment."
Consequence-free better describes the environment around driving.
Drivers' licenses do indeed get suspended from time to time, but the measure is essentially meaningless; some of the city’s most gruesome traffic fatalities over the last decade were, in fact, caused by drivers operating vehicles on suspended licenses. That fact undermines Tisch's bid for similar accountability for electric bike riders.
In March, Natasha Saada and her three children were walking leisurely near their home on Ocean Parkway when a speeding driver blew through a red light and mowed them down in the crosswalk, killing Saada and two of her children.
The driver, identified by cops as Miriam Yarimi, was, in fact, driving with a suspended license and with a long record of speeding. The license suspension did nothing to stop her from getting behind the wheel and speeding into the unsuspecting family.
They drive and they kill
Tisch’s vision of a functioning driver accountability system that keeps pedestrians safe is a farce, experts say.
"The whole set of institutions around driver accountability are badly broken," said Jon Orcutt, a former DOT official and advocacy director of Bike New York. "It’s a real stretch for [Commissioner Tisch] to say that there’s a system for driver accountability. Look at the Ocean Parkway case. It’s outrageous. Going back decades you can find [more examples]."
You don't even. have to go back decades.
Apolline Mong-Guillemin, the 3-month-old whose death rattled the city, was hit and killed in 2021 by Tyrik Mott who was driving with a suspended license.
And some of the killers don't even have licenses in the first place. This April, an unlicensed driver hit and killed a 99-year-old Taibel Brod in Brooklyn. Last November, an unlicensed driver killed beloved Bronx football coach Dwight Downer.
Even New York’s Finest are not immune to the tragedy of road violence at the hands of drivers who should be off the road. In 2021, a drunk driver with a suspended license hit and killed 43-year-old NYPD highway unit officer Anastasios Tsakos.
In 2020, a driver with a suspended license hit and killed 63-year-old Deborah Yvonne Gray.
Need more examples?
- In 2010, a driver with a suspended license critically injured Jason Clotter.
- In 2008, a driver whose license had been suspended eight times ran a red light and killed Angelica Riendeau, 14, on Long Island. Her mother fought to pass a law to lower the number of suspensions to qualify for a felony from 10 to five.
- In 2007, a truck driver with a suspended license killed a pedestrian on a midtown sidewalk.
Nationally, the trend remains. An estimated 75 percent of drivers continue to drive even if their licenses are suspended, according to a 2021 AARP study analyzing traffic data. And those drivers are more likely to be involved in serious crashes.
"We know that 75 percent of drivers with a suspended license drive anyway, which is why we're pushing for answers like safer street designs and Stop Super Speeders bill in Albany,” said Ben Furnas, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, referring to a bill that would require repeat speeders to install a speed-limiting device in their cars.
Why don't they get it?
In a nation that is as car-dependent as the United States, drivers with suspended licenses have always made the choice to continue to drive, knowing that they will likely only get caught if they are pulled over for another traffic violation. (In Michigan a driver was so entitled that he even showed up to a virtual court hearing about his license suspension from behind the wheel of a car.)
In this context, it's worth repeating that car drivers, most of whom have license plates and licenses, cause virtually all the deaths and injuries in New York City.
In 2024, 37 pedestrians were injured in the entire year in 179 reported e-bike collisions, the NYPD said. In that year, 9,610 pedestrians were injured overall, so e-bike riders caused just 0.4 percent of pedestrian injuries.
That pattern continued in the first three months of this year, with one pedestrian injured by an e-bike rider, according to the NYPD. Over the same period, 2,271 were injured overall, so e-bike riders caused less than 0.04 percent of the reported pedestrian injuries.
Experts see that context as crucial.
"It’s astonishing that our decision makers are doubling down on choices that make no one safer while ignoring the real options and changes that will protect everyone on our streets," said Amy Cohen, the founder and president of Families for Safe Streets. "We have to learn from our mistakes to build the future we deserve — not ignore facts, reason, and logic when crafting policy."
Those who have worked in transportation for years know that the system is broken.
"There’s no real strategy here other than jacking up a bunch of tickets," said Orcutt.
Streetsblog has been covering NYPD Commissioner Tisch's decision to turn traditional traffic tickets into criminal summonses like no one else in town. Here's a full list of our coverage over the past two weeks, in case you have missed something or need a reminder that when there's a big story on the livable streets beat, turn to Streetsblog:
- May 2: "Policy Change: NYPD Will Write Criminal Summonses, Not Traffic Tickets, for Cyclists."
- May 5: "NYPD’s Red Light Criminalization Marks ‘Obscene’ Escalation: Advocates."
- May 6: "As NYPD’s Criminal Crackdown on Cyclists Expands, It Grows More Absurd: Victims."
- May 7: "Komanoff: Tsk, Tsk, Tisch — Criminal Summonses for Cyclists Will Backfire."
- May 9: "NYPD’s Push To Criminalize Cycling Spells Trouble For Immigrant Workers."
- May 12: "Cyclist Launches Class Action Suit For Bogus NYPD Red Light Tickets."
- May 14: "NYPD Admits Bike Crackdown Based on ‘Community’ Vibes, Not Data."
- May 15: "Tisch Rap: NYPD Criminal E-bike Summonses Surge 4,000 Percent."
- May 15: "Quiet Desperation: NYPD’s Tisch Didn’t Tell DOT About Her Crackdown on Cycling.”
- May 16: "'All in the Family': NYPD Commissioner and Power-Broker Mom Are Both Crusading Against E-Bikes."
- May 19: "A Valuable History Lesson for Jessica Tisch: ‘The Rules of the Road’ Were Written for Cars"
- May 19: "Day 1: Criminal Court Judge Issues Safety Lectures to Cyclists, Including Citi Bike Celeb"
- May 21: "‘Cart Before Horse’: Upper West Siders Demand NYPD Halt Bike Crackdown"
- May 22: "‘The Biggest Complaint’? The Real Stories Behind NYPD Commissioner Tisch’s Bike Crackdown"
- May 28: "Defending Bike Crackdown, Adams Says Drivers Have Been Targeted ‘Far Too Long’"
- May 29: "Council Outrage Over NYPD Bike Criminalization Grows, But Speaker Adams Is In No Rush"
