Traffic Enforcement

Today DOT announced a "dusk and darkness" traffic enforcement and education campaign to reduce pedestrian injuries and deaths during fall and winter, when fatal crashes tend to be more frequent.

Blanca Pagan, the senior who was struck last Friday by a driver who failed to yield, was at least the seventh pedestrian killed by a motorist this year in the 19th Precinct, on the Upper East Side. Deputy Inspector Clint McPherson, the precinct's commanding officer, has prioritized ticketing people on bikes, with encouragement from local City Council members Ben Kallos and Dan Garodnick.

Appearing with WNYC's Brian Lehrer for his weekly "Ask the Mayor" segment this morning, Mayor de Blasio said the city's Vision Zero effort is "still in its infancy" and that "there's a lot more to do." The remarks come at a time when the city's two-year run of reducing traffic deaths seems increasingly unlikely to continue in 2016.

Since the launch of Vision Zero more than two years ago, NYPD has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy to target dangerous driver behaviors that are known to cause most injuries and deaths. To the contrary, a new Transportation Alternatives report finds that NYPD enforcement often targets the people most vulnerable to traffic violence, while motorist violations like speeding, failure to yield, and even leaving the scene of a crash go unchecked.

The 19th Precinct, on the Upper East Side, tickets more cyclists than almost any other precinct in the city. So it was fitting that the above tweet this morning came from the 19th. It encapsulates NYPD's failure to recognize how dangerous driving behaviors, not cyclists' own actions, are the big threat to people on bikes.

Earlier this year, when City Hall announced NYPD's "Bicycle Safe Passage" enforcement initiative to ticket drivers for blocking bike lanes and failing to yield to cyclists, it sounded like a step up from predecessors like "Operation Safe Cycle" -- which were notorious for fining cyclists, not protecting them. But the new NYPD bike safety approach still looks a lot like the old.

You can usually count on Vox for accurate, research-based explainers of public policy issues. That's why the new Vox video on red light cameras is so monumentally disappointing.