Everybody in Brooklyn probably has a love-hate relationship with car services. We use them to get from Point A to Point B, but we’ve probably all been menaced by their drivers as pedestrians. Us, we try to get out of the way. In any case, an email making the rounds via our friends at Park Slope Parents relates this tale of near woe:
Today my husband was taking my 5 year old daughter to school and they were crossing 8th Avenue at 2nd Street. A car from a car service backed up the wrong way on 8th Avenue, going through a red light, and went through the intersection at 8th Ave and 2nd Street, presumably because the driver was trying to get to a specific address without going around the block. Anyway, he almost hit my daughter and husband but luckily my husband was holding her hand and pulled her back.
So, two things: First and obviously – be careful crossing the street with your kids. I feel the need to say this because this past Friday on 7th Avenue and 2nd Street someone was hit by a car, so street crossing safety has been on my mind even before today. Second, my husband got the license plate, car number, and name of the car service and called the police. The police receptionist said they could not do anything because there was no cop on the scene to issue a ticket. This seems wrong to me – my husband was an eyewitness and he got the actual license plate number. Plus there were other
eyewitnesses who also took down the license plate number. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the police to at least investigate this?
Here’s another heart warming tale from the same thread:
This kind of thing has happened to me so many times! When I was 41 wks pregnant a cop watched a car nearly hit me and my 3 yr old on PPW as we crossed the street in the crosswalk with the light (the car was turning). The driver then stopped, leaned out his window, and screamed at me for walking too slow!
I went over to the patrol car and asked the cop if there was anything he could do. He said people drive aggressively here because people intentionally walk slowly while crossing 7th Ave. When I pointed to my enormous stomach and explained that I was walking as fast as I could, he just shrugged. He made it pretty clear that his sympathies were with the drivers.
And there you have it.
3 responses so far ↓
1 NM // Oct 29, 2008 at 9:57 am
You want to make police more sympathetic? Make more of them walk or ride a bike. There’s an idea for PLANYC Bloomie.
2 b // Oct 29, 2008 at 11:14 am
It a a traffic violation…it’s a simple ticket situation. A misdemanor or felony was not committed. legaly, a cop would have to witness it to give a summons despite witnesses. The most it could be is a ticket….and in this case it cant’ be issued.
You do realize this happens a million times a day in nyc….do you really want the understaffed cops to investigae millions of minor cases liek this
3 Steve Din // Oct 29, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Please tell us a) the name of the car service and b) the license #. We–the royal we–will take care of the rest. And “b”: go to he–. Just because it happens “a million times a day” doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. Scum.