Ride your hog safely or get a ticket: city

THE NYPD IS revving up to ticket motorcyclists as part of its summer street safety program.

The police department and city transportation officials on Friday said they are focusing the Vision Zero Warm Weather Weekends street safety program on motorcyclists — which means a crackdown on two-wheeled bad behavior and unregistered rides.

Motorcyclists face greater risks on the road compared to car drivers. Though motorcycles are 2% of registered vehicles, motorcyclist deaths are about 14% of the city’s traffic fatalities.

There were 33 motorcyclist deaths last year compared to 19 in 2016, an increase of 73%. Three motorcyclists have died this year through May 10.

NYPD Chief of Transportation Thomas Chan said that 85% of the 33 fatalities in 2017 involved “the motorcyclist and their decisions,” such as speeding or “whitelining” where they drive between cars.

“If you’re speeding and you’re ‘whitelining,’ you are creating a situation that’s going to be very dangerous to you, pedestrians and also to other motorists on the street,” Chan said.

City Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said the enforcement is about safety, not writing more tickets.

“That’s not the message. I think the message is, you don’t want to get a ticket from the NYPD,” she said. “We want to engage in safe behaviors.”

Michael Whetstone, president of American Bikers Aimed Toward Education, said motorists who change lanes, stop short or pull out are a danger to motorcyclists.

“Not only do we want to educate motorcyclists, but we want to educate drivers as well,” he said.

Still, Whetstone said that motorcyclists do get extra attention from police.

“Sometimes there is profiling. We do understand why that is, because there are a lot of people out there who are not riding legitimately,” he said. We promote ‘ride legitimately.’”