Traffic Enforcement

When most cities try to make biking a bigger part of their transportation systems, they use a standard checklist: comfortable biking networks, how-to-ride classes, traffic-law enforcement. The full list is sometimes called the “Five E’s.” A first-of-its-kind survey conducted by Rutgers academics Charles Brown and James Sinclair shows that when you look at biking from the perspective of a Black or Latino American, the Five E’s are missing a lot.

"They just give me a ticket for no reason. It is going to be the first time and the last time riding a bike."

E-bikes are not going anywhere. The city should be working on a strategy to safely integrate them into the transportation system, instead of pursuing this punitive approach.

In the four months after DOT and the NYPD launched the "dusk and darkness" traffic enforcement and education campaign, traffic fatalities dropped 26 percent compared to the previous year, the agencies announced this morning.

NYPD began to apply the city's Right of Way Law more extensively in 2016. The department scaled up summonses issued to drivers who injured people walking or biking with the right of way. Misdemeanor charges, meanwhile, were still applied in just a few dozen cases.

A 68-year-old man who ran his car through a group of protesters in Nashville not only won't be charged, but is being treated by local law enforcement as though he were the victim of a crime. And to make matters worse, a state legislator wants to codify legal immunity for drivers who strike protesters.

Last week Inside Edition went national with the story of NYPD personnel who use illegal license plate covers to evade toll readers and traffic enforcement cameras. Reporter Lisa Guerrero found scores of vehicles in Lower Manhattan that had some type of cover to obscure the plate, and all of them also bore law enforcement placards.

Right now, Albany limits NYC to 140 speed enforcement cameras for all 6,000 miles of surface streets in the city. A broad spectrum of New York City voters approve of expanding the program. The question is whether Albany Democrats Andrew Cuomo, Jeff Klein, and Carl Heastie will take action to save lives.

This short video makes a compelling case to turn 14th Street into a car-free transit priority route when the L train shuts down. Regular bus lanes on a street shared with cars won't get the job done.