Crackdown Sought After Three Killed by Drivers With Suspended Licenses

Crackdown Sought After Three Killed by Drivers With Suspended Licenses: "

David Shephard, joined by other advocates at City Hall.

At the end of last month, three people were killed in two hit-and-run accidents in New York City; the motorist responsible for each accident was driving with a suspended license. On Staten Island, the man who killed an elderly Staten Island couple walking to church had his license suspended 29 times, and the driver accused of mowing down 42-year-old bride-to-be Sonya Powell also had a suspended license, for failing to a pay a ticket for going 80 mph in a 50-mph zone. Yesterday, Powell's fiancé David Shephard joined others at City Hall to demand some big changes.

"Sonya was a kind and loving person who touched the lives of thousands of people. She would have wanted any legislative action possible to ensure that this type of tragedy doesn’t happen to any other family," said Shephard. The driver who allegedly killed his fiancé, 28-year-old Sheldon Reid, has had his license suspended four times, and Transportation Alternatives is calling on the state legislature to enact tougher laws and enforcement that will keep suspended and unlicensed drivers off the road. Their reform proposals include:

• 'Get unlicensed drivers off New York State roadways. New York State should follow the lead of other states and impose vehicle sanctions with the first offense. These measures have been shown to reduce crash rates among these drivers by as much as 35% among repeat offenders. The legislature should... empower police to immediately impound the vehicle of anyone caught driving with a suspended license.'



• 'Strengthen penalties against unlicensed drivers that injure or kill. T.A. urges the New York State Legislature to pass Assembly bill #5124, introduced by Assembly Member Joseph R. Lentol. Under this law, any driver that has committed two or more dangerous moving violations within the 18 months before a fatal or injurious crash could be charged with a felony.'



• 'Create an Office of Road Safety at New York City Hall to facilitate increased and targeted enforcement. By increasing moving violation performance objectives for NYPD officers, and demanding more stringent, constant traffic enforcement, many more suspended drivers will be caught before they have a chance to kill.'

'What kind of sick system encourages dangerous drivers to get back behind the wheel again and again, only to give them a slap on the wrist when they inevitably kill or injure others?' asked Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, unlicensed drivers are nearly four times as likely to be involved in traffic crashes as those with valid licenses. And 75% of drivers with suspended licenses continue to drive!










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Council Members: If Only There Was Some Way to Deter Reckless Driving

Council Members: If Only There Was Some Way to Deter Reckless Driving: "

Yesterday the City Council held a hearing on street safety for older New Yorkers. The hearing came while the deaths of Lillian and Peter Sabados, an elderly Staten Island couple run down by Allmir Lekperic on Thanksgiving eve, are still fresh in people's minds. But when it comes to keeping drivers like Lekperic from harming others, The Staten Island Advance reports, some of the borough's council reps seem to think they've exhausted their options:

"You do everything you can, but at some point,
it's out of our hands," said City Councilman James
Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn). "There are people who put
their keys in their car and believe the road is theirs, and
they don't care what consequences that means for you or
I or anyone else.

"Frankly, it's a surprise we haven't had
even more fatalities, when you think about all the times we
see people driving recklessly in this borough."

Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) agreed with his
colleague. "It's sad we have to turn to
traffic-calming devices to protect people from reckless
drivers," Ignizio said.

Lest the council members forget, Lekperic was a known public menace before he killed the Sabadoses, racking up 29 license suspensions. Yet thanks to a legal system rife with loopholes and light penalties, he could keep on driving. It may be up to Albany to change these laws, but Oddo, Ignizio, and the rest of the City Council could help set the agenda. Earlier this year, the public safety committee, chaired by Peter Vallone, Jr., turned down the chance to pass a resolution telling state legislators that loopholes enabling deadly driving must be closed. Both Vallone and Oddo are co-sponsors of Resolution 145, which specifically calls for measures to keep unlicensed drivers like Allmir Lekperic off the road.

It's also worth noting that Oddo and Ignizio haven't shown much care for safer street design either. They last appeared on Streetsblog clamoring for the removal of bike lanes in their home borough.

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City Council’s “Grace Period” Sparks Parking Agent Assault. What’s Next?

City Council’s “Grace Period” Sparks Parking Agent Assault. What’s Next?: "

A serial tire slasher, shown here in a video still, has targeted the vehicles of TEA agents. What effect will the meter "grace period" have on what is an already volatile environment? Image: Daily News

Before it's even signed into law, the City Council's inane parking meter "grace period" is already making the job of traffic law enforcement that much harder. Last week a Bronx TEA agent was allegedly assaulted by a 23-year-old motorist named George Collazo, who was under the impression that the new rule had already taken effect. The Daily News reports:

When [Collazo] returned to his parked car in Westchester Square on Thursday afternoon and found an agent about to slap a ticket on his windshield he allegedly went nuts.

Collazo wrestled a hand-held computer out of agent Sophia Sewer's hand, bending her finger back as he shouted that he couldn't get a ticket, authorities said.

"I get a five-minute grace period. It was in the media, today on the news," he yelled, according to court papers.

Collazo, who allegedly threw the computer to the ground, has been charged with menacing and assault.

Just as area merchants tried to justify recent acts of TEA vehicle vandalism in Westchester Square, even in such a clear case of motorist aggression, the News (which dubbed the TEA tire slasher a "Rubber Robin Hood") can't resist an attempt at rationalization.

A witness to the incident said Collazo had just bought parking time at a muni-meter and was bringing the ticket back to put on his windshield when the agent swooped in.

"That's why they need a grace period," said Aurora Susi, an employee at nearby Metro Optics.

"They need to give you time to walk back to the car. I see this every day."

With parking enforcers already subject to regular harassment and physical attacks, expect more confrontations between emboldened drivers and "swooping" TEAs once the latest giveaway kicks in, most likely with the continued tacit approval of city media. Nice job, Chris Quinn and City Council.

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Learn to Decode Your Car's VIN [Cars]

Learn to Decode Your Car's VIN [Cars]: "

You're probably at least aware that all cars have a unique Vehicle Information Number (aka VIN), but you may not know that the 17-digit VIN is packed with interesting information about your vehicle.

The car jockeys over at our sibling weblog Jalopnik detail how to decode your car's VIN. The meaty part:

The VIN is broken down into six parts:

Make/Model: (Digits 1-3) This breaks out the make, model and manufacturer of the vehicle.

Vehicle Features: (Digits 4-8) These digits identify the various features of the specific model.

Verifying #: (Digit 9) Using a complex mathematical formula this number determines whether or not the information has been faked.

Model Year: (Digit 10) This number or letter describes the year the MY for the car.

Assembly Plant: (Digit 11) This single digit identifies the assembly plant.

Sequence Of Model Production: (Digit 12-17) These digits indicate the order in which the vehicle left the assembly line.

Jalopnik's post runs through nine steps for decoding your VIN to decipher such information as vehicle features, where it was built, its sequence in production, and more. Remember that checking the VIN is an important part of protecting yourself when buying a used car, but beyond that, it's just an interesting source of info about your vehicle.

How To Decode Your Car's VIN [Jalopnik]

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Cops Cracking Down on Kids’ Seat Belts

Cops Cracking Down on Kids’ Seat Belts: "
Strap those babies down!

In the first ten months of this year, NYPD officers wrote 4,160 tickets for car-seat violations in the city. That's fourteen a day, and a 55 percent increase over last year. The tickets are issued for not using car seats, not buckling up, or using them improperly. Children up to age 8 must be in booster seats, and fines start at $50. Hear that, parents? You should buckle your kids up this year because cops are on the lookout. Or, you know, because you want them to not die if you get in a car crash. [NYP]

Read more posts by Chris Rovzar

Filed Under: blobs, babies, cops, nypd

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Newspapers Are So Hot Right Now

Newspapers Are So Hot Right Now: "Newspapers are being used in all manner of creative endeavors lately, in addition to their normal status as news delivery systems. Recently, there was the fake New York Times courtesy of the Yes Men and the six issues of a one-off newspaper that the Lower East Side's Dexter Sinister recently produced in Penn Station—right under the nose of the New York Times.



And now Twitter user AustinHorse alerted me to an interesting advertisement atop a taxi cap, for the A&E television show Hoarders. The campaign utilizes clear panels on the rooftop ads, and fills them with old newspapers. You can get a good look at them below, in photos posted by blogger Ask A Copywriter.

Interestingly, he also spied the same advertisement removed from the roof of a cab, left alone and abandoned on a sidewalk of New York City. So many metaphors, yah?

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Americans like White, the world likes Silver in new Color Popularity Report

Americans like White, the world likes Silver in new Color Popularity Report: "

Filed under: Car Buying

DuPont has released its annual Color Popularity Report, and for the first time has converged data from across the globe to create a worldwide report on how we, as a species, prefer our cars to be colored. OK, maybe that's a bit hyperbolic, but the new worldwide report confirms that Black, Silver and White reign supreme regardless of borders. The three colors are tightly packed in North America, where White is most popular at 17.8 percent with Black (17 percent) and Silver (16.8 percent) not far behind. Europeans, however, like the sleek look of Black at 27 percent compared to Silver at 19.9 percent and White falling pretty far behind at 10.2 percent. Different regions like different colors, but these three remain at or near the top across the board.



Who knows why car buyers the world over seem averse to all the colors of the rainbow. Not us. While we dig a nice metallic Silver, other colors like Red, Blue and even shades of Green have a way of teasing out a car's personality better than the grayscale stuff. If you were shopping for a new car (or are), what colors are at the top of your list? We've included a poll below to see if our audience thinks anything like a DuPont customer.

View Poll

[Source: DuPont]

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