New York Daily News

$50 fines for repeat offenders

- With Marco Poggio

they were camera violations, she never had to worry about her license being suspended.

Marybel Rodriguez, a mother from Queens who attended a traffic safety march in Park Slope on Monday night, said Bruns and the 50 drivers with scores of camera violations shouldn’t be behind the wheel.

“They should have just taken away their licenses,” she said. “It’s devastatin­g to continue hearing that innocent babies are being killed by reckless drivers.”

Mayor de Blasio said last week that Bruns should be arrested.

“She should never have been allowed to be driving a car after what we know,” said de Blasio, who vowed in 2014 to make city streets safer for pedestrian­s through his Vision Zero program.

As part of the safety push, the city got the state to pass a law in early 2014 that let the city operate speed cameras in 140 school zones. The number of violations issued has increased by 189% in the past four years, to 1,287,968 in 2017 from 445,065 in 2014, according to the city Transporta­tion Department.

Marco Conner, the legislativ­e and legal director for the advocacy group Transporta­tion Alternativ­es, said the cameras have been an effective traffic enforcemen­t tool. He said data show that most drivers who received a ticket did not get a second similar violation within two years.

“There are a smaller portion of drivers who are repeat offenders,” Conner said. “It is paramount that we address why they are still on the road.”

His group supports DenDekker’s bill. It is also pushing Albany to expand the number of speed cameras, especially because there are 1,800 schools in the city.

State Sen. Jose Peralta (DQueens) got a bill passed in the Senate last year that would suspend a driver’s license for 60 days if a motorist got two speeding violations in school zones in an 18-month period. He said it would include those busted by speed cameras.

He hopes the tragic crash in Park Slope — which killed 4-yearold Abigail Blumenstei­n and 1-year-old Joshua Lew — will at least prompt his counterpar­ts in the Assembly to address his bill.

“If losing the lives of two babies doesn’t, then I don’t know what does,” the senator said.

 ??  ?? Lack of accountabi­lity for drivers caught in camera violations was highlighte­d last week in case of Dorothy Bruns, who killed two children in Park Slope, Brooklyn, horror (main photo). She had previously been cited for running four red lights and...
Lack of accountabi­lity for drivers caught in camera violations was highlighte­d last week in case of Dorothy Bruns, who killed two children in Park Slope, Brooklyn, horror (main photo). She had previously been cited for running four red lights and...
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