Traffic Justice

Update: Pursuant to a plea arrangement with Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, in March Abel Tinoco pled guilty to aggravated unlicensed operation and was fined $500, according to court records.

Yesterday, nearly 200 people gathered on the sidewalk at a busy intersection on the Brooklyn-Queens border to remember 23-year-old Ella Bandes and hundreds of other people who have lost their lives to NYC traffic since the start of last year. Victims' families, advocates, medical professionals and elected officials called for slower speed limits and more serious consequences for dangerous drivers.

The most basic flaw in the New York State traffic justice system is that in most cases it fails to hold motorists accountable for deadly recklessness. Unless a motorist is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, killing someone with a car is usually not considered a crime.

Maude Savage, the 72-year-old who was hit by a motorist in a Brooklyn crosswalk last November, died from her injuries. Though video showed Savage was crossing with the light, charges were not upgraded against the commercial driver who took a corner at speed, striking her a few feet from a grocery store she had just walked out of. After Savage's death, the maximum penalty against the driver, who was charged the day of the crash with driving without a license, remains 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Kang Wong, the 84-year-old pedestrian left bloodied during last weekend's NYPD jaywalking crackdown, was arrested and charged by police. If convicted, Wong could get a jail term for an incident that stemmed from crossing the street without a walk signal. At the same time, the drivers who killed three pedestrians in the 24th precinct in the last two weeks face no criminal charges.

A motorist who has admitted to driving drunk in a crash that killed a Brooklyn pedestrian was not charged with homicide by District Attorney Charles Hynes or his successor Ken Thompson. He was allowed to plead guilty this week to a top charge of misdemeanor DWI, court records say, and faces a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

Yesterday NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said that in 73 percent of crashes in which a pedestrian was struck by a motorist in 2013, the pedestrian was at fault. Bratton presented that figure as an indictment of pedestrian behavior, and the stat was later parroted by the press. But more than anything it speaks to the victim-blaming bias that permeates NYPD traffic enforcement and crash investigations -- a major obstacle Bratton will have to overcome to implement Vision Zero.

The cab driver who killed a 5-year-old child in Brooklyn last year is still on the road. Meanwhile, the civil suit filed by the victim's parents was transferred to NYC this week from Texas, where the family lives.

The City Council transportation committee passed a bill today that would require NYPD to issue quarterly reports on hit-and-run crashes and investigations.