3 WEEKS’ NOTICE NYPD unveils plan to halt cyclist deaths
The NYPD’s response to a slew of cyclist deaths? Three weeks of extra enforcement.
The city’s top cop James O’Neill announced on Tuesday a new directive for police officers to be on the lookout through July 21 for dangerous drivers around the city who could endanger cyclists.
The orders came a day after Devra Freelander, 28, became the 15th cyclist killed on the city’s streets this year when she was run over by a cement truck on Monday. Ten cyclists were killed in New York City in all of 2018.
For the next three weeks, cops will need to pay special attention to drivers who fail to yield to bicycles, run red lights, speed or text while driving.
Traffic enforcement cops will also be cracking down on cars that are double parked in bike lanes, a violation that street safety advocates say is rarely enforced.
“Essentially the department is doubling down on a series of programs to deal with the spate of deaths,” said O’Neill, adding that the department is “re-emphasizing that cop cars in nonemergency situations can’t park or drive in the bike lanes.”
Mayor de Blasio, who has publicly supported street safety through his administration’s Vision Zero campaign, touted the relatively low number of cyclist deaths last year.
“We have to keep pushing the envelope and increasing our efforts until we achieve Vision Zero,” he said.
Marco Conner, deputy director of street safety advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said the crackdown should be standard operating procedure for the police department throughout the year, not just for three weeks.
“It’s mind-blowing to us that traffic enforcement agents aren’t already enforcing these violations, which is something we’ve called for since at least 2009,” said Conner. “People were dying at unacceptable rates prior to this crisis, and this announcement shows the mayor failed to realize this over the past several years.”