Traffic Enforcement

In a draft report released earlier this week, the National Transportation Safety Board says excessive speed is a deadly problem in our nation's transportation system -- one that federal and state officials aren't doing enough to address.

NYPD can provide no evidence that ticketing bike riders when a motorist kills a cyclist reduces the prevalence of fatal or injurious crashes. And yet the practice persists years after Mayor de Blasio supposedly ushered in a more data-driven approach to traffic enforcement under the banner of Vision Zero.

It's easier to blame pedestrian deaths on victims than to confront our responsibility to create a safer transportation system.

A new Transportation Alternatives report finds that speeding is common outside schools where cameras aren't in use.

NYPD has increased tickets for speeding and texting while driving 50 percent so far in 2017 compared to the same period last year, Commissioner James O’Neill testified at a City Council budget hearing last week. Speeding and distracted driving are two of the most common factors in fatal and injurious crashes in NYC, so it stands to reason that this shift in enforcement is reducing the incidence of dangerous driving. But there's no way to actually tell if those summonses are changing driver behavior.

Members of Families for Safe Streets are in Albany today to talk to state legislators about expanding NYC's automated speed enforcement program. After legislative leaders failed to advance a similar bill last year, this session it appears to have more traction.

Last week at Transportation Alternatives' Vision Zero Cities conference, LA County Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Tamika Butler delivered a strong message to attendees from around the country: Vision Zero does not exist in a bubble, separate from America's history and ongoing repression of people of color.

Speaking at the Vision Zero Cities conference, public safety committee chair Vanessa Gibson said the Right of Way Law "has to" be enforced.

Police brutality and racial inequities in criminal justice must be addressed by advocates and agencies aiming to reduce traffic fatalities. That's the key takeaway from a Vision Zero Cities panel yesterday on police violence and traffic enforcement. "Vision Zero cannot be a reason to overly-police black and brown bodies," said Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Tamika Butler. "You can’t ignore the country we live in."