Traffic Justice

The Riverdale Press revealed last week what should have been a bombshell allegation of the sort that is splashed on front pages across the city. But it wasn't picked up by other media outlets, nor was it the focus of the Riverdale Press story.

Safe streets advocates got a rare chance today to ask questions directly of a sitting city district attorney, even if they didn't get the answers they were looking for.

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

This afternoon, Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Barbara J. Fiala announced new policies to make it tougher for repeat drunk or drugged drivers to get behind the wheel.

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.