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A handful of city workers who drive taxpayer-funded government vehicles will have no choice but to slow down thanks to speed governors installed in the city’s fleet of 0.2 percent, Mayor Adams announced Thursday — acknowledging that the pilot program is free. His own SUV along with NYPD squad cars and police personal cars.
“We’re asking New Yorkers to slow down, so we have to start with our boats first,” Adams said, standing next to a new technology-equipped city vehicle at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. “You can clearly see that the correlation between these injuries and deaths is linked to aggressive and fast driving – we want to make sure we lead from the front. Currently exempt from this technology are emergency vehicles and my vehicle at this time.
The new technology, known as intelligent speed assist, can adjust to the local speed limit. For example, DCAS Deputy Commissioner and Chief Fleet Office Keith Kerman said drivers cannot exceed 15 mph.
“If you try hard to get to 16, it will pull you back and not let you accelerate,” he said.
Nine agencies are involved in the six-month, 50-vehicle pilot program: the Parks Department, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Business Integrity Commission, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the Department of Citywide Management Services, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and the Mayor’s Department of Roads. Observation Unit (Scout). In the year In fiscal year 2022, the city’s on-road fleet — including SUVs, sedans, pickup trucks, vans and dump trucks — consisted of 24,439 vehicles.
Beyond the city’s fleet of vehicles, tens of thousands of city workers, many with parking plates, drive to work every day. As Streetsblog investigated, those drivers — including police officers who drive their personal vehicles recklessly — will not be affected by the pilot program.
Adams defended his right to be free of cars and his own SUV, telling New Yorkers that he had a duty to be at the scene of an emergency in any part of the city.
“At any time in this city, anything that makes us move at an unusually fast pace can happen at night — if there’s an explosion, if a plane lands in a river, if I have any kind of emergency, this is a real city with real problems, and you’re going to be there and say, ‘Why is it taking so long to get the mayor there? Did they take time?’ “I don’t need you,” he said, warning drivers to slow down. We’re fine walking around the streets, but in the real world like New York, there are times when we have to rush to find a place to make decisions in the city. (Streetsblog took Adams to recent events and tied the plates on two SUVs that were issued speeding or red-light tickets on camera.)
But it’s no secret that many city workers have been hitting the gas behind the wheel — like the two DOT trucks at a recent press conference called How We Passed My Ride. Even the mayor’s new car posted He was arrested on Thursday for speeding in Queens on June 3.
Ironically, the car he picked up got a speeding ticket in Queens on June 3rd. #When I fight https://t.co/hDs24zEHzA
— Streets Blog New York (@StreetsblogNYC) August 11, 2022
And the simple act of being careful behind the wheel wasn’t enough for many of New York’s finest or other city workers.
Last April, the police officer driving an NYPD car that killed a man on East Parkway — after allegedly running a red light — was replaced, and the Internal Affairs Bureau took over the case, Streetsblog reported at the time. .
In the year The family of 20-year-old Sofia Gomez Aguillon, who was killed in 2020 by police officer Cesar Munoz when he ran a 60 mph red light on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, is seeking $20 million from the city. And last September, 3-month-old Apolline Mong-Guillemin was fatally shot by recidivist Tyreek, who was on the run from police.
Remember the car was being chased by the cops at the time https://t.co/PsymDBN80e
— Mark Tracy (@marcatracy) August 10, 2022
And over the past several years, the city has had to shell out tens of millions of dollars in settlements for victims of conflicts caused by city workers. In fiscal year 2021, from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, the city collected $138.5 million to settle 4,143 cases involving a public employee who hit someone — or something — with a city vehicle.
But over the past two years, speeding by city drivers has dropped 52 percent and injuries from crashes have dropped 20 percent over the same period, said Citywide Services Commissioner Dawn Pinnock. The new pilot program is the latest initiative to be implemented as part of the city’s Safe Fleet Transition Plan.
“With our defensive driving courses, telematics, surround and dash cameras and vehicle safety systems, safety is at the heart of the city’s fleet. We are already making progress,” Pinnock said. We hope this pilot builds on its success and solidifies New York City’s leadership position in flight management.
And advocates have encouraged the new technology to slow down drivers, even if only by a small percentage. But it’s a start, says Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.
“We know that 80 percent of the fatalities on our roads in New York City are caused by speeding,” Harris said. “We look forward to seeing this pilot expand to every vehicle in our fleet and to additional vehicles in New York City.”
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