Lawmakers, local officials, and advocates gathered in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall on Monday afternoon in support of a state-level bill that would require speed-limiting tech on the cars of recidivist “super speeders.” The rally follows an accident on Saturday that has shocked the city, as a driver with a suspended license raced through a red light on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway, killing a mother and her two daughters, aged 6 and 8, and leaving her four-year-old son in critical condition. The driver – who had accumulated 21 speeding tickets, 6 red light camera violations, and 70 other violations in the past two years – has been charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and second-degree assault.
“When people say ‘how can this happen?’ We let it happen time and time again,” said New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes. He and Assembly Member Emily Gallagher have proposed what they dub the “Stop Super Speeders” bill, legislation which would require the installation of speed limiters on the vehicles of repeatedly reckless drivers that accumulate 11 or more points on their license in a 24-month period, or that receive six speed camera or red-light camera tickets in a year.
Gounardes went on to explain that the bill is modeled on existing ignition interlock device laws (i.e. a “breathalyzer” connected to a vehicle’s ignition) found in most states, and includes similar criminal penalties for drivers who try to circumvent the device, either by driving someone else’s car that doesn’t have one, or tampering with the device on their vehicle. The devices are programmed with the vehicle’s current location and information about what speed limit applies, rising and falling accordingly when a driver might merge onto or exit from a highway.
Assembly Member Gallagher called the technology “fantastic” when describing her experience in a car equipped with it last year. “It is working around the world. It is a well-loved intervention around the world to insert this contraption into cars that prevents speeding.” In 2022, the European Union officially adopted a mandate requiring all new vehicles sold in the EU to include tech that prevents drivers from speeding when activated, though drivers can deactivate the tech if they so choose. Virginia has also passed a speed-limiting-device bill last year, the first state in the country to do so.
Despite the strong case the State legislators appeared to make, garnering the support of candidates for NYC mayor like Zellnor Myrie and Brad Lander, the bill has been languishing for two years with no clear path to getting passed. Gounardes says that people’s reluctance to accept a “novel approach” like this one has held it back, and that unfortunately it only returns to public discussion in the wake of a terrible tragedy like last Saturday.
Assembly Member Michael Novakhov, who represents the largely Jewish Orthodox community in Gravesend where the accident occurred, is not on board. When asked by the transportation-focused outlet Streetsblog about the measure at the victims’ funeral, he tried to discredit it, as well as other systems currently in place to curb speeding. “What I don’t like about the bill is it says six red-light or speed violations in one year [triggers the installation of the speed-limiting device]. I think this is too little,” he said. “Any driver can get much more than six. … Sometimes you don’t see the camera. Sometimes there are situations where you have to speed up a little bit. To be honest with you, I’m against the cameras because we have too many.” Other mourners vehemently disagreed: “how could you say something like that after this tragedy?”
The driver in Saturday’s accident was going 11 miles per hour over the 25 mile-per-hour speed limit. While 25 and 36 miles per hour may both seem like slow speeds, as far as pedestrian safety is concerned, they are worlds apart. A 2011 report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety finds that a pedestrian is about 70 percent more likely to be killed if struck by a vehicle going 30 mph versus 25 mph.
While the “Stop Super Speeders” bill faces the skepticism of a general public worried about a measure they view as overbearing or invasive, Gallagher has taken the issue of recidivist drivers at face value, likening their inability to help themselves to other forms of addiction. “People who are addicted to speeding will find a way to drive and speed again,” she said at the rally. “It’s an adrenaline rush. It is a chemical thing, and we need to treat it like a chemical thing.”
