[Photo via @WPIX]
In its coverage of this morning's probably drunken drag-racing crash on Second Avenue at East Fourth Street, Streetsblog reports the following. I wanted to highlight this here:
This crash occurred in the 9th Precinct, where officers issued 11 speeding tickets in all of 2012. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector John G. Cappelmann, the commanding officer, go to the next precinct community council meeting. The 9th Precinct council meetings happen on the third Tuesday of the month at 7:00 p.m. at the precinct, 321 E. 5th Street. Call 212-477-7805 for information.
The City Council district where this crash occurred is represented by Rosie Mendez. Since March 2012, at least seven pedestrians and cyclists have been killed by motorists in Mendez’s district, including three people in 2013. To encourage Mendez to take action to improve street safety in her district and citywide, contact her at 212-677-1077 or @RosieMendez.
21 comments:
I'm in the 5th precinct but this has got me so upset, I may go to the next 9th precinct council meeting!
The 9th has become more useless than ever. Recently here was a late-night frat party on a roof near my building that went on until dawn. I made repeated attempts to call the precinct, starting around midnight, only to have a machine pick up instead of a human being. I left a number of frustrated messages but never got a call back; finally, when people started screaming out their windows at the hooligans, they shut down and went inside. But since something like that is not considered an emergency, so you can't call 911, that leaves us, what, without police representation after a certain time of night? WTF?
Since you mentioned her name, Rosie Mendez will be completely unresponsive to any contact request to do, you know, her job. This is based on personal experience. You will however make it on to her email spam list if you send her an email. She won't respond to it, but you'll get plenty from 'her'. Phone call? Sure. We'll get right back to..
Perhaps it's time to start a 311 campaign? Attend Council meetings? Write letters to the editors of all periodicals? 9th, 5th, whatever precinct... it's all over the city (Queens Boulevard, right?) and it's unacceptable!
Ha. ELEVEN tickets for speeding? How many cyclists have they ticketed for treating red lights as stop signs? To be fair to Rosie, her office has been pretty responsive on this stuff (I call and gripe a lot about unsafe streets), but the NYPD has clearly made an institutional decision not to enforce speeding laws, and nothing will change until the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association takes its hand out of Marty Golden's ass and lets us install speed cameras everywhere and levy substantial fines and jail time for speeding
In all fairness with traffic its a bit difficult to speed in East Village run red lights that's number that would be interesting. But I really want to know the number of tickets for walking an old friendly dog off the leash. Don't blame the blue flower pots they are simply lemmings tickets are written for two factors ease and revenue.
@ Anonymous
When people say the police should write more speeding tickets however when I decide to not leash my dog "it's ok" it's not ok. We cannot pick and choose which laws to follow because we think an exception is in order for us. This thinking can be applied to those going "just a little" over the speed limit for "just this one time".
3:32, the leash law doesn't only protect others, it protects your dog as well!
For example, let's say a cyclist or skateboarder is about to accidentally collide with your "old friendly dog". If leashed, you can pull the dog out of harm's way if it doesn't realize the danger or is too rickety to jump out of the way.
Regardless, you can't always predict what will set an animal off (either a fear or aggression-based reaction).
You should always, ALWAYS have your dog leashed during the required hours.
Also, it's not just the 9th that doesn't enforce traffic laws. It's Department wide.
Midtown South issued 0 speeding tickets and Midtown North issued 1.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ticket_down_notch_EVMuJ3XBeRBPuFU3NEkD0O
Cops are ticketing cyclists while cars are speeding and running through reds at every intersection nearly every time the light changes.
Lately I have noticed a rash of cars thinking its OK to turn RIGHT ON RED. Most often they have out of state license plates (especially New Jersey) where its legal to do this since those states have almost no pedestrians compared to NYC.
Note to out of State drivers: It is definitely NOT OK to turn right on red, especially through dozens of pedestrians and cyclists.
I have never seen one of these law-breaking drivers get pulled over and given a ticket. Yet I have seen about a dozen cyclists ticketed for sidewalk riding, riding outside the bike lane, and of course wrong-way cycling. Amazingly, one cyclist told me last week he got a summons for going right on red. But not the cars. They might as well go straight on red, as fast as they want to go, since they do not have to worry about getting a ticket.
Today a cyclist got caught in the middle of the worst accident involving a CitiBike yet, but since the City and Bloomberg have neglected any attempt to fix serious safety issues like speeding, installing safer lanes, and stopping illegal turns and lane cutting, todays accident is just the forst of many more to come.
Streetsblog?
Oh yeah, that's an unbiased source of info. Might as well talk to the NRA about gun control.
@Giovanni:
I don't usually make fun of people's typoze, but when you write:
"todays accident is just the forst of many more to come"
I have to point out that that driver took out a tree but didn't see the forst.
I also have to add that getting the cops to write more tickets for cars is going to take a big change within the institution. The cops get evaluated by (among other things) how many tickets they write, so they go for the easiest ones. That's why bikers get ticketed for going slowly through a red light at a T intersection. They're the lowest-hanging fruit.
There are going to have to be some pretty deep changes in the way the police dep't works for this situation to change, and that's not an easy thing.
The cyclist was hit by a flying fire hydrant, was treated at the scene and released. BTW, it's legal to make a turn on red in NY state, just not in NYC.
I'm sure it's still tough being a 9th officer (though certainly less tough than it used to be) but . . . it's really bothersome that there doesn't seem to much basic accountability, much less accountability to the neighborhood. I'm not surprised the 9th doesn't give out speeding tickets but . . . how hard could it be to give out a couple hundred tickets on the Avenues just to say "Hello, don't freaking drive 100 miles an hour in an area with a 35 mph speed limit and zillions of pedestrians and, yes, bikes." Every evening when I stand on the corners at 2nd and 1st, I see one speeder after another . . . and think "There's no way to not have accidents at that kind of speed." It's no wonder that several of our intersections are among the most dangerous in the city.
Gojira--there is something way wrong with the phone numbers of the 9th, he news that get answered are unlisted! That said, 311 noise complaints are directed straight to the precinct.
Disgusting. Drivers are driving at highway speeds down to the avenues on any given day. They will race to catch a red light. Go figure.
Proper enforcement would make the streets safer, and raise money via ticketing.
- east Villager
Here's an interesting observation- who are the greatest speed demons throughout the entire city? CAB DRIVERS. They force speed and congestion to take place in completely unobstructed ways! They can operate with immunity on all fronts. Cross three lanes.of traffic, obstruct streets and traffic, speed throughout the city cut off other drivers at whim, park illegally. All without violation of any kind!! Perhaps that's where we need to begin. Have these individuals who come in from other countries follow and be made liable to our laws. Stop hitting the workmen of this city with undeserved violations and go after the ones who are the actual culprits reducing our quality of life. I gueas the kickback that the city receives on medallions buys one the ability to purcase immunity. Let's get real and set the standard for everyone equally. City Hall wouldn't like the people coming down on them
FWIW, the only times I've seen (and been in the car) tickets given out for bad driving in the EV has been in cabs. There are several spots that cops sit waiting for a bad left turn or a run light and hand out tickets to . . . cabs, as far as I can tell. I'm sure it's easier than handing out tickets to drunk partiers.
Yes, cabs do, at times, speed but, from what I can tell, they tend to be no better or worse than other drivers and, doh, I don't remember ever seeing cabs race down 2nd Ave. at 80 mph.
It's not just speeders that aren't ticketed.
(a) at the STOP sign that was planted and painted on the ground near the old Village Voice office on 4th Ave and 6th St, I asked a group of uniformed folks standing around and sitting inside a Traffic van why none of the motor vehicles that were sailing past the stop sign were ticketed. The leader of the group said that they were Traffic officers. When she noticed my look of confusion, she explained that Traffic handles parking not traffic and suggested that I contact the 9th precinct and request enforcement of the traffic rule at that stop sign.
(b) When a cab driver started backing his cab out of 9th St and 2nd Ave outside Veselka, nearly hitting a two women crossing the street there with the light who jumped out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit, I asked two uniformed NYPD officers who were standing right at the scene why they didn't ticket the driver so he wouldn't do that again. One smiled and answered that it wouldn't do any good, he'd still do it again, so no ticket.
(c) When I asked a Traffic (I guess I never learn) officer in a car that was immediately behind a car that was sitting right in the crosswalk at St Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue waiting for the light why that driver wasn't being ticketed for blocking the crosswalk, the officer said that they used to ticket for that but that they "got too many complaints" so they stopped.
I am quite sure that this is not the result of individual cops deciding not to write moving violations but that a directive has come "from above". This is pretty much the case throughout the city so far as I've seen.
Dead Man Walking, then there's just no hope.
I'm actually anxious to move out of the city. I'm done. Been here 22 years and it's only getting worse in ways I can't deal with/tolerate anymore.
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