‘Stop Super Speeders’ Proposal Will Only Work If Albany Gets The Details Right … And The City Follows Through: Analysis

Catching devils is in the details.

The version of the “Stop Super Speeders” initiative that will be included in the state budget maintains the legislative premise of requiring drivers who have racked up 16 speed-camera tickets in 12 months to install a speed-governing device inside their cars.

But what if the person doesn’t install the device?

And how will such a defiant driver be caught?

And what happens if he’s caught?

And will the City Council even pass a bill creating such a program once it has the power to do so? (It’s a reasonable question, given that the Council has not seized the power to lower speed limits that it got under the so-called Sammy’s Law after Gov. Hochul put in the 2024 budget).

The answers to these questions are still being hashed out by legislative leaders and the governor in Albany in anticipation of passing a final budget this week. And the answers are crucial. Here’s what we know:

After a car hits the 16-ticket threshold, the owner of the vehicle will apparently get a letter from the city Department of Transportation saying that he must install the device, which has an estimated cost of $150 — the price of just three tickets. (Given how quickly many drivers hit 16 tickets, the device will pay for itself in a few months.) There is also a more-substantial subscription fee on the device itself to enable it to connect to a digital map that knows the speed limit on every road. (There are multiple websites hawking such subscriptions with prices ranging from roughly $90 to $199 per month.)

Drivers with more than 16 speed-camera tickets in a year have proven that they aren’t interested in following city vehicular rules, so it’s likely that many will not install the device after receiving the letter from the DOT. Under the original legislation — S4045/A2299 by Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) and Assembly Member Emily Gallagher (D-Brooklyn) — failing to install the device would be a misdemeanor, which raises the stakes from the mere violation of a camera-issued ticket.

But under the current proposal, if a driver who is ordered to install the device is caught without one, the registration on the car will be revoked by the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The problem? Many drivers keep driving even if their license or registration is revoked. One such driver was wigmaker Miriam Yarimi, who killed three people on Ocean Parkway in 2024 despite driving on a suspended license.

Unlicensed drivers cause one-quarter of all fatalities, a city study showed.

Whatever the final language of the budget bill, Stop Super Speeders will be a program run by the city Department of Transportation. It is unclear if the Mamdani administration could simply carry it out, or whether the City Council will have to pass a bill creating the program, as it must do under Sammy’s Law.

Both Mayor Mamdani and Council Speaker Julie Menin support the Stop Super Speeders proposal, though neither has spoken about the details of carrying it out.

When programs fail

Supporters of the Stop Super Speeders bill are already raising alarms that if lawmakers don’t tighten up the language of their proposal, it will lack the teeth to not only ensure that speed governors are indeed installed in the cars of the worst drivers, but there is accountability if it is not done.

In other words, as one DOT insider worried, we might have “another DVAP” on our hands — a reference to the Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program, a precursor to Stop Super Speeders that passed the City Council in 2020 and went into effect in 2021.

It failed spectacularly, in part because of comprises made along the way to even get it into law as well as insufficient rules and funding.

The program initially began as a quest by then-Council Member Brad Lander to rein in the worst reckless drivers by seizing their cars after they had accumulated a large number of camera tickets. But the law that passed merely require reckless drivers to attend a 90-minute safe-driving course — and their cars could only be seized if they failed to attend the course or got another speed-camera ticket after taking it.

In addition, it was scaled back to just city residents because, as the DOT report said, there are “frequent obstacles in seizing vehicles of non-respondents who live outside the five boroughs.”

Worse, more than half of the drivers who got the order requiring them to show up at the safe-driving course didn’t bother and couldn’t be tracked because their either swapped out their plates or moved away.

But a lengthy Streetsblog analysis of the pilot program, largely confirmed by a subsequent DOT report, revealed that the program did not dramatically improve safety among the worst-of-the-worst drivers — and seized only a tiny number of vehicles — because of its limited ambition and underfunding.

By the time it sunset in 2023, no one wanted to revive it.

That’s not to say that the speed-governor program is destined to fail. But it is a reminder that details need to be worked out in advance.

Some details are apparently known: For example, currently, if a police officer pulls over a driver, the officer does not know the driver’s history of speed- or red-light camera violations because such violations don’t carry points on a driver’s record, and, as a result, the DMV is not involved and such violations don’t show up on the Driver Abstract that cops access after pulling over someone.

But an Albany source who is involved in writing the final Stop Super Speeders language said that the DMV will be informed that a driver had received a letter requiring him or her to install the speed-limiting device. If true, it means that an officer pulling over someone for speeding will know that the car had been flagged for a speed governor — but it’s unclear what power cops will have: Will they be able to seize the car right there?

Unlikely. The city does not have a very “robust” towing system, another city insider said.

This week will be crucial as the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted on the state budget. We’ll keep you posted.