NYPD Road Safety Crackdown Nets 142,000 Tickets in 5 Days

BROOKLYN, NY — A recent NYPD crackdown on bikers and drivers designed to improve road safety produced a dramatic uptick in summonses and tickets issued.

From June 20 through June 24, the NYPD issued 1,757 tickets to vehicles blocking a bike lane, compared to 739 tickets during that period in 2014, the last time officers engaged in a similarly targeted effort.

Here are some of the NYPD's other statistics, also applying to the June 20-24 time frame:

• 14,133 tickets were issued to vehicles parked in a "no standing" zone, up from 11,501 in 2014
• 8,704 double-parking tickets were issued, compared to 7,906 in 2014
• 142,456 total parking summonses were issued, compared to 126,224 during 2014
• 1,086 cars and bikes were ticketed for failing to stop at a red light, compared to 783 tickets in 2014
• And 810 tickets were issued to bikes and cars that failed to yield to a pedestrian, compared to 510 in 2014

The NYPD's numbers were not broken down by borough, and did not differentiate between tickets issued to cars versus bikes.

Earlier this week, Transportation Alternatives, one of the city's leading bike advocacy groups, criticized the NYPD for issued too many tickets to cyclists and too few to motor vehicles.

"Across the city, we see officers pulling over large numbers of cyclists for infractions that almost never lead to death or injury, while largely ignoring the violations that kill and maim the most New Yorkers, which are driver speeding and failure to yield," said TransAlt had Paul Steely White.

The statement followed the July 2 death of Williamsburg cyclist Matthew Von Ohlen, the victim of a hit-and-run that has yet to be solved.

Ohlen isn't the only Brooklyn biker to lose their life on the streets this year. Other victims include Park Slope resident James Gregg and Weeksville's Lauren Davis, both killed in April, while Bushwick resident Leah Sylvain lost her life in June.

The NYPD could not immediately provide Patch with the number of tickets it has issued to cyclists so far this year. However, a 2015 report by DNAinfo found that between Jan. 1, 2012 and Feb. 26, 2015, the NYPD issued 51,841 tickets to bikers.

Through the end of May, the NYPD precincts patrolling the northern half of Brooklyn handed out 53,374 moving violations, according to police statistics (which, again, don't separate out bikes from cars). That included 4,275 tickets for failing to stop at a red light and 1,391 tickets for failing to yield to a pedestrian.

Top image courtesy of kdingo/Flickr