This is the fourth installment of our feature: “What will the next Manhattan DA do about reckless drivers.” Earlier features included an op-ed by candidate Liz Crotty, which advocates for decriminalizing reckless driving, and a counterpoint op-ed by challenger Assembly Member Dan Quart calling for stiffer penalties for drivers who injure, maim and kill. Another candidate, Diana Florence, argued for the establishment of a vehicular-crimes task force. Today’s feature is by Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a fourth candidate in the June 22, 2021 primary to replace outgoing DA Cyrus Vance Jr.
New York City has a serious traffic-violence problem. The facts are clear: a staggering 30 percent of New Yorkers have been injured in a traffic crash, while 70 percent of New Yorkers know someone who has been injured or killed in a traffic crash. This Labor Day weekend, I became one of them, when a dear colleague and friend was struck and killed by a bus driver while riding her bicycle home from a
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Today we are publishing two contrasting op-eds by candidates for Manhattan District Attorney about how reckless drivers should be punished. One, by Liz Crotty, is here. Below is a counterpoint by Assembly Member Dan Quart.
The city’s response to its epidemic of traffic violence has been woefully inadequate: In the vast majority of cases, a driver hits and kills a pedestrian or cyclist, calls the collision an “accident,” and faces few or no consequences.
Take the case of Cooper Stock in 2014, a cabbie mowed down the 9-year-old boy while he walked in a crosswalk, holding the hand of his father (who was injured). District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. ticketed the driver for careless driving and failure to yield, fining him $580 and suspending his license for six months. Vance brought those non-criminal charges 11 months after the crash, and only following a public out