Tucked in one of the state’s late budget bills is the culmination of years of safe-streets advocacy in the form of Sammy’s Law, which will permit local government to lower the city speed limit to 20 miles per hour, or potentially below in certain cases.
It seems like prior-year objections to its inclusion on the grounds that the budget isn’t the right vehicle for policy were more about the policy itself than the principle. We must commend Gov. Hochul for not letting this equivocation stand and pushing for the law’s inclusion this year.
The repetition of the name “Sammy’s Law,” over and over for years, can make us forget that Sammy Cohen Eckstein was a real person, a 12-year-old boy whose life was cut short in what should have been a moment of play when he was struck by the driver of a van in Brooklyn more than 10 years ago.
That’s what this really is about, children like Sammy and the countless others who have been killed or injured by drivers, for no reason other than they were trying to shave a few minutes off their trip.
For New Yorkers, the fact that we’re the only major city in the nation in which the majority of the population does not own a car is a point of pride. We are proof positive that urban environments can be walkable and transit-rich, for the working class and wealthy alike.
We understand, of course, that it is not possible nor desirable to rid our streets of cars and trucks entirely, but we also know that the balance of interests must be set in favor of safety, which means constraining vehicular traffic for the benefit of all.
As common-sense a law as this is, it would have never passed without the dogged, persistent and unabated pressure of activists like Sammy’s mother, Amy Cohen, and other family members, friends, loved ones and impacted people themselves, who could testify to the devastating consequences of high-speed crashes.
Dropping the speed limit to 20 miles per hour from the current 25 might not sound like a significant shift or a goal worth a years-long campaign, but this benchmark’s effectiveness as a life-saving measure is backed up. Wide-ranging studies have shown that this intervention reduces the severity of collisions and casualties, and while this cannot fundamentally prevent road injuries and fatalities, it can make the difference between a narrow miss and an irreversible collision.
Beyond that, there’s no reason that localities like New York City shouldn’t have control over something as fundamental as local speed limits. We wouldn’t expect the state to step in and start dictating the intervals at which we pick up our trash or how we inspect our buildings, so why would it set speed limits?
This law returns to the city the power to make this choice in accordance with its needs, and what the city needs is safer streets for everyone (and we mean everyone; motorist grumbling aside, this speed limit safeguards those behind the wheel, too).
This alone is not enough, but it’s a big step forward that will allow more of our children to step outside and play without fear of a driver who can’t brake fast enough on a residential street.
