No Assembly Vote For Park Slope-Inspired 'Sammy's Law'

NEW YORK CITY — Shameful. A slap in the face. New Yorkers will die.

Safe streets advocates raged after the State Assembly ended its 2023 session without a vote on Sammy's Law — a bill that would give New York City the power to set its own speed limits.

Just weeks ago, the bill named after Sammy Cohen Eckstein — a 12-year-old Park Slope boy who died after a motorist struck him — had appeared tantalizing close to passage after years of waiting.

But Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie slammed the brakes on advocates' hopes when he pointedly didn't call a vote on the bill. Now, they're saying he'll have blood on his hands.

"No one else should die," said Amy Cohen, who is Sammy's mother, in a statement. "Unfortunately – thanks to the State Assembly – they will."

“Make no mistake: New Yorkers will die because the State Assembly refused to act," said Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

The bill's bitter end means New York City officials and advocates will have to wait longer, perhaps indefinitely, until the city can set speed limits down to 20 mph.

Advocates and aligned lawmakers have pushed to pass Sammy's Law for years. But they failed to gain enough momentum until this spring, when a wide swath of officials — from Mayor Eric Adams to City Council members to the State Senate — through their support behind it.

Heastie's decision to hold the bill prompted Cohen and another mother who lost a child in a traffic crash to stage a hunger strike that lasted nearly 100 hours, advocates said.

In the end, it wasn't enough. But Harris, who called the Assembly's inaction a "slap in the face," said it's not the end.

"We will not rest until every New Yorker can walk, bike, and drive without fear of death or serious injury," he said.