According to the Queens Chronicle, speeding is now the number one killer in the five boroughs. However, despite this known fact, there are fewer officers on the road today than there were just a few years ago. Largely due to recent budget cuts, there simply are not enough police on the streets to give summonses for speeding.
A local nonprofit organization, Transportation Alternatives, conducted a study revealing that last year more than half of New York’s police precincts gave out fewer than two speeding tickets per week. Also, over the last ten years 1,745 pedestrians and bicyclists were killed and 142,485 injured on New York City roads. What was the main reason? Speeding.
In spite of this, Transportation Alternatives reports that the New York Police Department last year gave out more tickets for having tinted windows than for speeding. The numbers they crunched showed that 16,300 New Yorkers received speeding ticket fines as compared to 65,900 tinted windows tickets. Strikingly, the 103rd Precinct, which is situated inQueens, gave only 71New Yorkspeeding ticket fines but wrote a whopping 6,704 tinted windows tickets.
In a world where the average driver hopes to avoid a New York speeding ticket, much has not been done and little outrage has ensued. However, several lawmakers and the Chairman of the Public Safety Committee have attempted to deal with the problem. Instead of advocating for an increase in the police force or focusing on speeding at the expense of other crimes, these individuals are trying something groundbreaking.
The Chairman submitted a resolution in Albany detailing a plan to allow officers to issue New York speeding tickets even when they are not present at the time of an incident as long as they have reasonable cause to believe that a speeding violation occurred. Although some legislators find this controversial, the Chairman believes it might be the best chance he has at restoring safety to the streets of New York.