Traffic Justice

Legislation prompted by the deaths of two children in Chinatown would mandate a safety course and community service for drivers who seriously injure or kill a pedestrian or cyclist in New York State.

Last Saturday, the Daily News reported that a man was critically injured when he was struck by a Range Rover on 14th Street at Eighth Avenue Friday evening at around 6 p.m. The out-of-control SUV went on to strike several cars before coming to rest on its side.

Mark your calendars for the morning of Wednesday, June 3. That's when the three declared candidates running for Manhattan District Attorney -- Richard Aborn, Leslie Crocker Snyder, and Cyrus Vance -- will sit down for a round table debate on traffic justice. Organized by Transportation Alternatives and the Criminal Justice Society of the Benjamin Cardozo Law School, the event will get each candidate on the record about vehicular crime and how the district attorney's office can protect New Yorkers from dangerous drivers.

The Post last weekend noted some disturbing statistics relating to city drunk driving prosecutions. Out of 10,000 arrests last year, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, 6,000 cases worked their way through the courts, with just 187 offenders receiving jail time. Further tarnishing DA Robert Morgenthau's record on traffic justice, Manhattan was the "most lenient" on those convicted of DWI -- with just 2.8 percent landing in jail -- and also had the city's lowest conviction rate at 75 percent. (The state conviction rate, the Post reports, is 95.6 percent over the last three years.)

Early this month Streetsblog regular ddartley tagged a series of shots for the Flickr feed showing the aftermath of a driver-cyclist collision on the edge of Stuyvesant Town. According to Dartley, the cyclist was a restaurant delivery man, on the job when he was hit.

The words never fail to shock.

In part our interview with veteran vehicular crimes prosecutor Maureen McCormick, the former Brooklyn ADA, now with Nassau County, offers insight into the state of traffic justice in New York State, and describes how she and others in the prosecutorial community are working to strengthen laws that deal with negligent drivers.

Earlier this month Streetsblog talked with Leslie Crocker Snyder, candidate for Manhattan district attorney, about how she would approach pedestrian and cyclist fatalities as the borough's top prosecutor. Today we will hear from a prosecutor who has made traffic justice the centerpiece of her career.

The horrific death of a young mother in Midtown wasn't the only instance of curb-jumping mayhem on Friday. Shortly before Ysemny Ramos was pinned against a building by an allegedly drunk driver on E. 37th Street, a yellow cab lurched off Amsterdam at W. 106th, plowing onto the sidewalk and into a pizzeria.