Reckless disregard
Unlaunched law could’ve prevented baby’s death in B’klyn
The driver accused of killing a 3-monthold baby girl in Brooklyn on Saturday should have had his car impounded months ago — but Mayor de Blasio’s administration has failed to implement legislation cracking down on the city’s most reckless drivers.
Tyrik Mott, 28, from Crown Heights, drove a 2017 Honda Civic with Pennsylvania plates the wrong way down Gates Ave. about 6:20 p.m. when he slammed into another car at Vanderbilt Ave., cops say. Both vehicles careened onto the sidewalk where little Apolline Mong-Guillemin was being pushed by her mother in a stroller. The baby died. Her mother was taken to the hospital in serious condition. Mott allegedly attempted to make a getaway by carjacking another driver and was arrested.
Public data show that Mott’s vehicle was the subject of a laundry list of traffic violations well before the tragedy in what’s on pace to be the bloodiest year of de Blasio’s signature street safety initiative, Vision Zero.
Mott’s ride has at least 160 traffic violations in New York City since June 2017. That includes 35 tickets for speeding in school zones and five red-light camera violations so far in 2021.
Such a record of recklessness is more than enough to trigger the city’s Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program, which was passed in February 2020 and requires the owner of any car with at least five red-light tickets or 15 speeding tickets in a 12-month period to take a driving safety course within 30 days or have their car seized by the city sheriff’s office. City officials said in 2020 the program would affect 3,000 to 6,000 drivers.
But Mott was allowed to continue to treat the city like a racetrack because the program never get off the ground. The city has not yet started offering the driver safety courses required under the law, de Blasio spokesman Mitch Schwartz confirmed. No cars have been impounded under the law.
The legislation establishing the program allowed the city to begin towing cars as early as October 2020. City Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), who introduced the bill, said he has received no time line from de Blasio’s team as to when it would launch.
“The speed and red-light cameras have already collected the data that identifies the most reckless vehicles on our streets,” said Lander. “The fact that we haven’t taken that step to implement the program even though we adopted it feels like an especially big failure at this moment.”
De Blasio said during a Monday news conference the program will be “a very powerful tool” to fight reckless driving. He pointed fingers at state lawmakers for not passing the Crash Victims Rights and Safety Act, a package of proposed bills that target dangerous driving and incentivize the purchase of smaller, less dangerous cars.
“Our laws in this state are still too lax when it comes to reckless drivers,” de Blasio said. “We need help in Albany.”
But de Blasio did not explain why city agencies had failed to implement the bill he signed into law.
Mott’s driving record — and Hizzoner’s deflection of responsibility — had street safety advocates fuming.
“It just proves that a crash like this could have been prevented,” said Danny Harris, executive director of the street safety advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. “Our mayor may say this is COVID, he may try to blame Albany, he may try to blame somebody else, but let me remind you: He’s our mayor. These are our mayor’s streets . ... It shows the failure of leadership.”
The wild wheelman’s license has been suspended 14 times, polices sources said.
Mott was arrested on Aug. 8, 2018, for reckless driving on Atlantic Ave. near Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn when he switched lanes, almost hit cops and turned left without signaling, cops said. He was collared for assault and criminal mischief in October 2019 after he hit a 20-year-old woman in the face in Jamaica, Queens, with a lamp. And his last arrest came when he was pulled over last February at Avenue V and W. 11th St. in Brooklyn for driving with an expired tag and suspended license, police sources said.
The baby’s death was the latest in a tragic year on New York City’s streets.
De Blasio launched Vision Zero shortly after taking office in 2014 with the goal of reducing traffic fatalities. But the number of annual traffic deaths in the city began to rise in 2019. The city has seen at least 186 traffic deaths so far this year, NYPD data show, which puts the city on pace to be the deadliest for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists since the year the initiative began.