Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Street Justice

NYPD Denies Access to Confiscated Bikes, Including Those of Crash Victims

By Steve Vaccaro and Kimberly Kinchen | Apr 8, 2014 | 3 Comments

As seasoned observers of the department’s dealings with bicyclists know, NYPD has long enjoyed taking our bikes. Following the 2004 Republican National Convention, NYPD clipped locks and took bikes of persons suspected of associating with Critical Mass, resulting in a successful federal lawsuit that enjoined the practice as a constitutional violation. During a 2010 visit […]

NYPD’s Jaywalking Enforcement Boondoggle

By Steve Vaccaro | Mar 11, 2014 | 27 Comments

Although the de Blasio administration’s Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic fatalities does not specifically call for pedestrian traffic enforcement, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton has made clear that individual precinct commanders have the discretion to do so if they determine it to be warranted. Leaving aside the many good reasons that pedestrian ticketing should be […]

How the City Council Can Impose Tougher Penalties on Reckless Drivers

By Steve Vaccaro | Nov 19, 2013 | 66 Comments

The election of numerous safe streets candidates earlier this month, followed by the exoneration of road-raging cabbie Faysal Himon and the gut-wrenching parade of daily traffic deaths since, create the best opportunity in years to impose meaningful consequences for sober reckless driving. I have been told by numerous lawyers with state legislative experience that only […]

Reforming NYPD Crash Investigations: What’s Next?

By Steve Vaccaro | Aug 21, 2013 | 15 Comments

New Yorkers were outraged to hear yesterday that there may be no criminal charges against cab driver Mohammed Himon, who plowed into a bicyclist and several pedestrians, horribly injuring a woman on the sidewalk. Although yesterday’s NYPD statement was not official, anonymous leaks to the effect that sober drivers who stay at the scene of […]

Personal Security and Livable Streets

By Steve Vaccaro | Aug 13, 2013 | 20 Comments

Yesterday’s watershed decision in Floyd v. New York, in which federal Judge Shira Scheindlin found NYPD’s stop and frisk program unconstitutional, has thrown a spotlight on the issue of personal security. Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Kelly at his side, utterly rejected the decision, suggested it would directly result in increased violent street crime, and vowed an […]

Rally for Our Right of Way

By Steve Vaccaro | Aug 6, 2013 | 4 Comments

The right of way. You won’t find it in the Declaration of Independence, the UN Charter on Human Rights, or any other foundational declaration of rights. But that’s not because it’s any less important. At least for those living in dense urban environments — a growing proportion of Americans — respect for the right of […]

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