Yesterday the city council's Transportation Committee discussed the implementation of speed cameras, but apparently there was still a question of whether speeding is an unchecked problem that kills scores of New Yorkers every year (it is). Streetsblog reports that Councilmember Eric Ulrich, he of bicycle licensing fame, scoffed at the necessity of speed cameras, saying that cars traveling 10 to 15 mph over the speed limit "pose no threat to anybody else on the road." Doesn't the DOT itself stress that pedestrians struck at 40 mph have a 70% chance of dying, compared with 20% if the car is traveling 30 mph? Ulrich's opinion of the DOT: "I don't believe them, and I don't trust them."
We've asked Councilmember Ulrich to clarify his comments and will update if he responds.
Indeed of New York's 274 traffic fatalities last year, the leading cause was speeding, which was responsible for 81 of those deaths. Of the 1,020,754 moving violations handed out by the NYPD in 2012, 71,305 were for speeding (which is a decrease from 2011 of about 5,000). The NYPD writes far more tickets for tinted windows or driving while using a cell phone.
Testifying at the Public Safety committee hearing last week, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly admitted that it's easier to hand those tickets out than to cite drivers for speeding: "You have to have calibrated devices to give speeding summonses, you need experts." Or cameras.
Ulrich was joined in his opposition of speeding cameras by lobbyists for AAA, and Councilmember Dan Halloran, who once used two young women dressed like soda cups as props. In support of the speeding camera measure was committee chair James Vacca and councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer.
The committee also discussed closing a loophole in Hayley and Diego's law (VTL 1146): currently NYPD officers must witness an incident to charge a driver with careless driving, or have witnesses sign affidavits, which the NYPD refuses to do.
The new law would give officers broader power to issue the summonses. Vacca noted that both the loophole closure and the speeding cameras involved issuing civil penalties without witnessing the infraction, but this didn't bother Halloran: “I don’t have any issue with the state legislature revisiting and making explicit the authority."
