Monday’s Headlines: Beware of ‘Fraud’ Fraud Edition

The news on Friday before we closed up shop for the weekend was a press conference held by Gov. Hochul in support of her increasingly desperate push to lower car insurance rates.

Readers of Streetsblog know that we’ve thrown virtually all of our limited resources to challenge the governor’s basic premise that owning a car is too expensive and that victims of car crashes are just scammers. We know better — and our coverage has led many reasonable people (like our state reps) to similarly question the governor’s supposition.

After all, her Big Tech supporters are hiring actors and throwing around money like its softballs on an April weekend to bolster her case — not a good look.

As much as we admire our colleagues, boy, they just do not fact-check these claims. The City, for example, wrote, “The governor pinned surging auto insurance premiums on an 80-percent spike in fraud claims since 2020,” without reporting (as we have) that the fraud claims are merely reports from the insurance industry … and are not limited to alleged auto fraud claims. We’ve also reported that those “reports” of fraud rarely lead to arrests and have resulted in even fewer convictions, as we reported.

Meanwhile, the Times, wrote, “Supporters of the plan say reforms are necessary to crack down on a spate of staged car crashes,” without pointing out that said “spate” is merely alleged staged crashes … and those allegations amount to just a tiny fraction of the 400,000 or so very real crashes every year in New York State.

Meanwhile, we’ve offered many better ways to cut costs without endangering vulnerable road users. And we know the governor is reading, so maybe she’ll also listen. (All our coverage of the scam is here.)

In other news:

• The pantheon of mainstream media stories where drivers are held completely unaccountable has a new member: This ABC7 story about a “out-of-control” cab that can’t bother itself with the detail of how the the “cab” went “out of control.” Incomprehensibly, the version in the usually over-the-top Post was just as bad. Shame.
• So amNY followed our coverage of toll fraud merely by letting Janno Lieber write an op-ed. In fairness, the old man writes pretty goodly.
• Speaking of op-eds, Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn championed outdoor dining in the Daily News.
• It’s MTA-Transit Workers Union contract negotiating season, which means there will be lots of planted stories in the press. The Daily News kicked off with a story about the union’s fight for a bill in Albany to mandate two-person trains.
• The pothole blitz is on (amNY) — and after we shamed the New York Post last week, the tabloid finally saw the human toll of badly paved streets.
• It’s going to be very windy on Monday. Please be safe. (NY Post)
• As we get closer to our own local elections (Primary Day is June 23!), it’s worth noting that Paris has its own bike-first political party! (Votez Vélo)
• The revolving door of government has spit out another Adams administration official — and the Mamdani administration is not pleased. (The City)
• The New York Times is the latest outlet to reheat the nachos of Dave Colon’s story in New York Groove about Ellen Baum, the woman who is cutting locks off the Brooklyn Bridge.
• The Post slammed Council Member Lincoln Restler as “anti-car” because he wants to create more pedestrian space. The Tabloid of Record’s delusions are on full display here — the bill would only apply to areas with the “highest rates of pedestrian traffic” like Manhattan’s Herald Square and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, the kind of places where pedestrians are literally forced into the street just to get around. I thought the right wing supported human dignity, but I guess I was wrong — proven by know-nothing Council Member Joann Ariola’s quote: “This is yet another favor for the anti-car lobby that will make life harder for residents of the outer boroughs.” It literally will not. But it will make life better for pedestrians.
• And, finally, our friend Andrew Hampsas sent us pictures of the Review Avenue protected bike lane from his ride on Saturday. And we pass them along so that DOT can see what it needs to do this week: