Cameras or death
Gov warns GOP on speed control: Lives in peril
ALBANY –With city speed cameras around schools set to go dark next week, Gov. Cuomo on Thursday accused the state Senate Republicans who have blocked renewal of the program of holding public safety hostage for other issues.
“If they don’t pass them, I believe they will literally put lives in danger,” Cuomo told reporters following an unrelated event in Brooklyn.
Bills that would renew and expand the speed camera program passed the Democraticcontrolled Assembly, but died in the Senate, where Republicans held up passage of the legislation on behalf of Sen. Simcha Felder.
Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat who caucuses with the GOP and has provided them with the needed 32nd vote for the majority, wants to tie the issue to his push to require armed security at city schools.
“You’re holding the public safety hostage? For some political contract that you want?” Cuomo said. “That’s disgusting if that’s what they’re saying.”
“The Senate Republicans control the Senate,” he added. “They (can) go back whenever they want. Go back, just pass this bill and save lives. And if you don’t pass this bill, you put lives in jeopardy and there will be no excuse.”
A four-page analysis released Thursday by the state Department of Transportation found that speed enforcement camera programs “have proven to be a highly effective tool for reducing pedestrian fatalities and injuries in New York City and throughout the country.”
New York City is one of 144 communities in the United States that have speed camera programs, the report says.
Citing New York City figures, the daily rate of violations issued for excessive speeding in school zones at the typical camera declined 60% to four a day, down from 10 . Repeat violators were only 19% of those ticketed after being caught on camera.
Total crashes were down 15% while those resulting in injuries dropped 17%. Fatalities fell 55%, the report shows.
Sofia Russo, a founding member of Families for Safe Streets — whose 4-year-old daughter died in 2013 after being hit by a speeding reckless driver — called on the Senate Republicans to renew the law “so that we can change the culture of speeding and reckless driving in New York City and honor our children who are traveling to school.”
Without last-minute legislative action, the 140 speed cameras in the city are set to be shut off by the city on Wednesday.
Senate GOP spokeswoman Candice Giove responded that “no parent should ever experience the grief that these parents bear, but the advocates’ exploitation of their anguish to advance a myopic vision for street safety is unfair to all New Yorkers.”
Giove argued that the drops in fatalities are a result of a multipronged effort that “involves more than just an infinitesimal number of speed cameras and relies more so on a citywide speed limit reduction, police enforcement, redesigned streets, educational campaigns and speed bumps.”
She said the city’s own report shows that most pedestrian deaths and injuries occur where speed cameras are not permitted by law.
“The Senate wanted to engage in meaningful conversation about the vast improvements we can make at every school, but the Assembly and our governor decided to leave town and deliberately poisoned this issue for political purposes,” Giove said.