The NYPD’s ill-advised bid to issue more jaywalking tickets as a safety measure after a spat of traffic deaths on the Upper West Side isn’t going so well. As Streetsblog reports, cops cited pedestrians on New York State Vehicle & Traffic Law Section 1152, legislation that’s superseded by city law, and sent them to criminal court, even though jaywalking is a traffic violation.
As you might imagine, the criminal court system dismissed those summonses on the grounds that issuing officers “followed the wrong procedure and/or used the wrong form.”
Note to the NYPD: focus more on the drivers who actually cause traffic deaths and less on the pedestrians and cyclists who are often the victims. For more on the tangled web of city and state laws on traffic enforcement, here’s why you can legally ride your bike outside the bike lane, even though state law says otherwise.
(Photo: @walkingsf)
