Traffic Justice

Queens resident Gerald Beekman (an alias we're using at his request), arrested in May after twice being nearly run down by an irate driver in Long Island City, had his first court appearance last month. The case was held over until October, as District Attorney Richard A. Brown's office did not yet have a supporting deposition from the alleged victim, who told police at the 108th Precinct that Beekman damaged the car he was driving. Beekman was charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor that carries a sentence of up to 12 months in jail.

The Leslie Crocker Snyder campaign has announced a detailed transportation safety plank, rounding out a field of Manhattan district attorney candidates committed to advancements in traffic justice.

Cy Vance has become the second contender for Manhattan district attorney to release a campaign plank on traffic crime.

For the second time (that we know of) in less than a week, a yellow cab driver has wreaked havoc on Manhattan streets, terrorizing pedestrians and leaving a trail of destruction.

Few regular readers of this blog need to be convinced that pedestrians and cyclists of all stripes -- i.e. the vast majority of New Yorkers -- are completely vulnerable to serious injury and death at the hands of reckless motorists. Though collisions, near misses and confrontations occur with such frequency that even fatalities often go overlooked in the media, every now and then a flurry of events shows just how far we have to go in balancing the scales of traffic justice. To wit, here's what's happened in the last few days:

Following Brad's post last week about one pedestrian's encounter with an enraged driver and the NYPD, I caught up with Ray Bengen, another New Yorker charged with criminal mischief after touching a car that threatened his safety. Bengen is still waiting for some kind of resolution to his case, which is on hold while the Manhattan DA's office decides whether or not to prosecute him.

The collision that claimed the life of eight-year-old Axel Pablo yesterday afternoon was another sobering reminder of New York City law enforcement's institutional failure to deter deadly driving. Police let the cab driver who killed Pablo, Akim Saiful Alam, leave their custody after deciding that he had not committed a criminal act. Even adherence to the so-called "Rule of Two" can't explain away the lack of charges in this case.

A Queens man will go to court tomorrow following a charge that he damaged the vehicle of a driver who -- twice -- nearly ran him down in the street. The incident occurred some three weeks before the road-raging motorist encounter that triggered a legal ordeal for Manhattan cyclist Ray Bengen.

Candidate for Manhattan district attorney Richard Aborn has a piece on The Huffington Post today comparing New York homicides with traffic fatalities, and pledging to give traffic crime the attention it deserves.