Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose SUV was caught on video speeding and ignoring stop signs two days after he demanded that drivers obey traffic laws, said the New York Police Department, not he, was responsible for the vehicle’s operation.
“The NYPD provides security protocol for the drivers; talk to them about that,” de Blasio, who took office last month, told reporters outside his Brooklyn home this morning. He said he would answer questions about the incident at a news conference this afternoon.
The city police department backed up de Blasio, saying in an e-mail that its security team alone determines how to transport the mayor “based on their specialized training in executive protection and professional judgment.”
A WCBS television broadcast video yesterday showed the mayor’s two-vehicle caravan speeding through an icy residential area of the city’s Queens borough and running past two stop signs while en route to City Hall after a news conference about filling potholes. Two days earlier, de Blasio vowed to abide by a 63-point program that included reducing speed limits and enforcing laws to eliminate traffic deaths.
De Blasio, 52, is New York’s first Democratic mayor in 20 years. He won election in November by the largest margin for a non-incumbent in city history after decrying income inequality, pledging an open administration and promising that his actions as mayor would conform to his words.
Speed Limit
The WCBS camera crew reported that the mayor’s motorcade was traveling 40 miles per hour where the speed limit was 30 mph, and later exceeded the limit in a 45 mph zone. The vehicles also changed lanes without using directional signals, according to the video.
“We’ve put a very bold plan before you and we want the public to know we’re holding ourselves to this standard -- and we intend to achieve these goals,” he said at a Feb. 18 press conference announcing his traffic-safety plan.
The plan would reduce the citywide speed limit by 5 mph to 25 mph to cut down on accidents that kill more than 250 people and seriously injure 4,000 each year in the most populous U.S. city.
De Blasio also proposed increasing speed and red-light monitoring cameras, harsher penalties for traffic-law breakers and adding highway-unit police to catch violators. Parts of the plan would need approval from lawmakers in Albany, the state capital.
To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net
0 comments:
Post a Comment