NYPD Cracking Down on Brooklyn Bikers
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the NYPD will begin a borough-wide bike crackdown in a few weeks. More moving violations will be issued for the the failure to obey traffic signs and signals, surpassing the speed limit, tailgating, and failure to signal before turning. While the numbers of bicyclists is growing and the bike lanes…
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the NYPD will begin a borough-wide bike crackdown in a few weeks. More moving violations will be issued for the the failure to obey traffic signs and signals, surpassing the speed limit, tailgating, and failure to signal before turning. While the numbers of bicyclists is growing and the bike lanes on Prospect Park West have caused controversy, cops claim the reason for the crackdown is because bike accidents have been up. Some bikers aren’t convinced. Rider Lacy Tauber think cops should “focus on drivers,” while bike advocate Baruch Herzfeld thinks this could further strain the relationship between bikers and cops.
Bikelash! Cops to Crack Down on 2-Wheelers [Brooklyn Paper]
“^^^ THE PROGRAM THAT HAS MY KEYBOARD STUCK IN ALL CAPS! ^^^”
HILARIOUS!
“As long as they start ticketing the drivers who stop or park their cars in the bike lanes, I’m ok with this.”
A big Agnostic AMEN from me! The bike lanes in Brooklyn Heights on Sunday are chock full of cars parked with those obnoxious church-issued get out of jail free parking signs on the dashboards. Would Jesus want cyclists being forced into the center of the street and risking serious injury? Why should churchgoers get a free pass? I once asked a parking enforcement officer about this and they agreed it’s not legal but it’s overlooked as a courtesy. Not very courteous to cyclists.
i almost got run over by a cyclist the other day. he actually somehow knocked my glasses off my face as i was in the crosswalk. didn’t stop, and actually yelled at me. i was upset, still am. but i also realize that if that had been a car, i would have been creamed. so i’m pretty grateful that the idiot rides a bike! and the other thing? that is the *first time* i had a close call with a biker while living in brooklyn – as compared to nearly having been run over by cars on flatbush, on atlantic, and all over the side streets of PS and PH multiple times, on pretty much a daily basis.
don’t get me wrong, i believe we all should follow the rules. but it’s pretty clear that cars cause more, and more serious, accidents than bikers. where resources are scarce, enforcement ought to be proportional to the potential severity of the consequences for infractions.
I would think that if New Yorkers actually want safter streets, then a crackdown on drivers would be more useful, but who am I to question everybody’s favorite new cultural conflict, i.e. the irrational hatred of bikers.
I would think that if New Yorkers actually want safter streets, then a crackdown on drivers would be more useful, but who am I to question everybody’s favorite new cultural conflict, i.e. the irrational hatred of bikers.
“there may be an argument that cars and bikes pose an similar risk of death by trip taken.”
Even if that were true, it’s not a good argument.
You could extrapolate anything like that to make your argument for you.
However, even though it’s a bad argument, I DID run your numbers out of curiosity. If your numbers are correct with 250 deaths per 1.6 million car trip per year and the figure of 1 death per 200,000 bike trips per year is correct, it shows that cars are a whopping 31 times more likely to kill a pedestrian.
randi- I blush, but it’s fun 😉
and if they stopped Bloomberg from butchering Spanish at the end of every one of his speeches, my life expectancy would go up by two years!
and if they ticketed every motorist violating some rule within the 8 or so blocks from GAP to Atlantic Center, they could hire another 15,000.
If they ticketed every cyclist going the wrong way around GAP over a nice weekend, they could hire another thousand cops.