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The big story over the weekend was ... us! But there was other news, too!

Here's a final roundup of details from Charles Komanoff's provocative series on the early street safety movement.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's memo ordering precincts to focus on dangerous jaywalking offenses looks like a positive sign, but it still directs officers to write out citations in a way that ensures many won't be heard in court.

Maude Savage did everything right. She used the crosswalk. She looked both ways before entering the street. She waited for the pedestrian signal. Then she was hit by an allegedly unlicensed motorist in a commercial van who drove into her while making a left turn at a high rate of speed.

New Yorkers were outraged to hear yesterday that there may be no criminal charges against cab driver Mohammed Himon, who plowed into a bicyclist and several pedestrians, horribly injuring a woman on the sidewalk. Although yesterday's NYPD statement was not official, anonymous leaks to the effect that sober drivers who stay at the scene of a crash will face no criminal charges are almost always borne out  — unless the District Attorney conducts its own investigation.

This morning, a group of livable streets advocates gathered in the Madison Square pedestrian plaza to announce the formation of StreetsPAC, a political action committee to put street safety front and center in New York City's 2013 election cycle.

In the aftermath of a crash, we inevitably ask: How can a dangerous driver be kept off the road? It seems that the entire automobile transportation regime is aimed at keeping the driver behind the wheel. Absent impairment or flight from the scene of the crash, police quickly conclude that “no criminality is suspected.” The name of the responsible driver may be carefully guarded by police, even when the name of the victim or selective details are not. Government compels the insurance market to continue insuring the responsible driver, even if the market would consider the driver too risky to insure. The under-resourced legal system and insurance industry neglect and obstruct crash litigation, pressuring victims to simply accept whatever insurance is available without holding the driver personally responsible.

As mentioned in Street Justice last week, legislation has been proposed that would create felony liability in some cases where a driver flees the scene after seriously injuring or killing a person. At present, leaving the scene of a crash is a misdemeanor, often a class B misdemeanor punishable only by a fine of $250.00. That’s less than the fine for running a red light.  That we attach so small a consequence to the outrageous act of injuring a person and leaving them in the road to die is positively shameful.

In the last ten days, nine New Yorkers were killed by traffic violence. In each case where the driver responsible was sober and stayed at the scene, NYPD has announced, often within hours, that there was “no criminality suspected.” How can the deaths of so many fall completely outside the scope of the criminal laws?  The answer lies in the traditional emphasis in criminal law of punishing the “evil mind.” Meaningful driver accountability requires that we move past "evil minds" and implement strict criminal liability for traffic violence.

The U.S. auto industry presents a striking paradox. On the one hand, manufacturers design and engineer for passenger safety, incorporating features such as airbags designed to protect passengers even in the face of serious human error.  On the other, manufacturers almost entirely disregard the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists who foreseeably will be struck by their vehicles.