Traffic Justice

City Council Member Dan Garodnick is asking NYPD for a "full investigation" into the weekend crash that killed Upper East Side pedestrian Rubin Baum.

Another innocent bystander was killed by an outlaw motorist in Manhattan last weekend, and indications are that another perpetrator will go unpunished by police and prosecutors.

Despite the number of two-wheeled cop patrols around some cities, police aren't always the most bike-minded bunch. When there’s a conflict between motorists and cyclists, they're often inclined to take the motorist’s side. As Streetsblog has reported, police in New York City care more about drunk pedestrians than unsafe drivers, despite the fact that most fatalities are caused by motorists violating traffic laws. And then there's the bizarre example of Los Altos, California, where police say cyclists are the ones causing crashes by speeding or even failing to yield automobile right-of-way. Huh?

Ian Clement, the U.S. Postal Service employee who drove a truck over cyclist Marilyn Dershowitz, then left the scene, has been found not guilty of hit-and-run by a Manhattan jury.

The general public will probably never know if Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was pressured into pursuing a case against the hit-and-run driver who killed Marilyn Dershowitz. But given the number of traffic death and injury cases that never see the inside of a courtroom, Ian Clement's attorney can viably employ such a seemingly irrelevant argument in his client's defense.

Cassandra Faustini took a job as a bike messenger to help make ends meet. After getting rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver last year, she tried to report the crash to a police officer, who refused to take her statement. One year later, she’s joining other New Yorkers to demand reforms to the way NYPD and its Accident Investigation Squad handle crashes – and she’s asking for people to take part in a day of online action on September 17.

If you've suffered a life-altering injury, or even lost a loved one, at the hands of a negligent New York City driver, there usually isn't much the authorities can do for you. To hear NYPD tell it, the department barely has the resources to investigate traffic deaths, let alone the thousands of pedestrian and cyclist injuries that occur every year. District attorneys are so flummoxed by weak traffic laws that they can't muster the wherewithal to push for new ones. And while some on the City Council would like to help, their influence is limited.

When a Long Island judge last month acquitted a drunk driver of manslaughter on the grounds that the pedestrian he struck was also intoxicated, the decision sparked shock and outrage. But the case of Robert Core was only the latest in which an area motorist all but escaped punishment for killing while under the influence.

As expected, criminal charges against the driver who fatally struck Brooklyn pedestrian Clara Heyworth have been dropped. Unexpected was a critique of the case from the bench, as a judge today lambasted prosecutors for abandoning efforts to bring a suspected DWI killer to justice.