5 mph Reduction Means Little

Mayor De Blasio signed into law the new speed limit for New York City, changing it from 30 mph to 25 mph.

Let’s think for a second how fast that is. A person can walk fast at 4 mph. For a car, that is going extremely slow. Hence, the 5 mph difference amounts to next to nothing.

Why did the mayor want this law passed? Because it seems that he blames drivers for the number of accidents and fatalities on the roads with bikers and pedestrians. This is amounts to flawed reasoning. Let’s look at all three participants.

Drivers – There are many who drive a bit over the limit. There are many who say to themselves when the light is about to change: “I’m going to make that light”, and go through right after the light changes to red. They are in too much of a hurry to want to wait a few seconds. There are many who also go through stop signs; they slow down but either don’t stop or cut off the pedestrians. There are also those who refuse to wait for the bus under the el. They cross the double yellow line to pass the bus, putting everyone in danger ahead of them.

Bikers – Many bikers follow the traffic laws and stay in the bike lanes and who know to bike in the directions of the traffic flow. Then again, there are those who speed around, weaving through traffic, especially those who must make deliveries as fast as they can. Here again, we have the drivers, of any kind of vehicle (no exceptions), causing problems. They love to park in the bike lanes and block the bikers, forcing the bikers into traffic.

Pedestrians – This is the most free-moving of the group. People will cross the street when and where they want. Many times you see them daring drivers to hit them. Then again how many are on their phones and are oblivious to the traffic?

The bottom line is that everyone – drivers, bikers and pedestrians – all have their own minds. Everyone is going somewhere and everyone is trying to evade one another. Therefore I would ask the mayor to explain what 5 mph for drivers will accomplish. The answer is nothing.