Friday’s Headlines: Cars Are Big Killing Machines Edition

City firefighter Brauley De La Rosa is still driving recklessly after he tried to kill a cyclist with his car in June. Photo: Liz Gonzales
City firefighter Brauley De La Rosa is still driving recklessly after he tried to kill a cyclist with his car in June. Photo: Liz Gonzales

You had to see the video — and thanks to Gothamist, many did. A driver on the West Side Highway was seen trying to drive over a cyclist. Streetsblog’s own coverage pointed out that, sure, we don’t know exactly what happened — but we do know that there’s not a single thing that someone on a bike can do to a driver that would warrant being run over as retaliation. Thankfully, the NYPD was on the case … and let the driver go.

Oy vey.

Here’s the rest of your news for Friday:

  • Wow, Jeffrey Mays really missed one key thing about Corey Johnson in his broad profile on him in the Times. Not a word about the would-be mayor’s leadership on livable streets? It’s like the guy’s main platform agenda! His “State of the City” address centered on his one-hundred-page plan for fixing our streets. Not a single word, Gray Lady? Come on.
  • Breaking news out of Brooklyn’s Community Board 10 in Bay Ridge: The DOT’s plan for a “starter pack” of bike lanes didn’t fair too well, says Radio Free Bay Ridge. Remind us again why the DOT asks untrained people to make decisions about street safety.
  • In case you missed it, we did a post-mortem on Polly Trottenberg’s resignation from the MTA board.
  • Um, cutting a cord on a timekeeping device is not a good way for LIRR workers to fight the perception that they lie about their hours (NYDN). And they’re still using antique punch cards, like in “Laverne and Shirley”! (NY Post)
  • Amazon wants its delivery robots to be treated like pedestrians. So you mean like garbage? (Business Insider)
  • Gothamist has another disgusting-thing-on-the-subway video — which you know you’re going to watch.
  • And how about this: A cop on a bike ticketing trucks parked in a bike lane! (Reddit)

That’s all for now, folks. We’ll start our day at Sen. Jessica Ramos’s e-bike hearing at Flushing Town Hall at 10 a.m.

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In Memoriam

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By many measures, 2011 was a bleak year for advocates of traffic safety. Where 2010 offered hope with the passage of new laws designed to hold reckless drivers accountable for harming vulnerable street users and the seating of a district attorney who pledged to do the same, this year saw those same laws go all […]