$50K Grant Helps Cops Crack Down On Speeders

Lead-foot drivers beware: These officers will be out in force in coming weeks to catch you in the act of endangering lives.

How about the Jay Walkers.How about going after cyclists who dart right in front of a car.Run red lights.Ride on the sidewalk.How about also Bring this back

Jaywalkers Nabbed At Crosswalks

Who knew that it has for years been illegal to cross on the diagonal at an intersection, even if pedestrian signals give you the all-clear to go?

This reporter didn't know that.

Nor did the nine downtown pedestrians who each received a ticket for the infraction within 60 minutes. Ouch! To the tune of $92.


https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/pedestrian_and_cycle_safety_pilot/

The first "E" , enforcement has been invisible during the current administration and it has nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with the city trying to be politically correct and handcuffing the police all in the name of equity. Wonder why people drive around with guns in their cars and fire bullets from moving vehicles in New Haven, it's bc there is little chance of getting pulled over.

Motor Vehicle Stops City Wide from CompStat
2018 16,948
2019 11,665
2020 7,168
2021 6,083 YTD Aug 15
2021 8,111 FY projected based on 450 in the last 28 days ended Aug 15th. 450 stops is less than 2 per Ward per month. So essentially zero enforcement.

Our politicians are asleep at the wheel.

Reports here
https://www.newhavenct.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=38974
https://www.newhavenct.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=35947
https://www.newhavenct.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=42831

THANK YOU THREE FIFTHS !!!!

The bikers and joggers are out of control. zooming thru red lights, down one ways at high speeds, never obeying traffic signals.

Yale cops hide on Hillhouse sleeping/talking and doing nothing while one block in either direction its a biker/jogger free for all causing near misses every few minutes.

Yale Safety Services where are you ??? It should be part of orientation. Mandatory Bike and pedestrian class. The lesson shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to explain the basics. Don't run out into traffic. There almost done !

Yesterday a women with a kid caddy blew the red light at Whitney, my light was clearly very green and hers was dead red, went around a line of cars at the light in oncoming traffic and flew out right in front of me with no line of sight.
Thank God my ABS worked and I was only going 20. I would have had to live with that if i reacted a second later. VERY CLOSE !
She thought it was funny that I screamed at her for endangering her child who was trailing behind her and riding so carelessly. "I need to get over myself" was the reply
Called the PD and they said what do you want us to do about it ???
Typical NHPD response. How about your job ?

Ever hear of child endangerment ? I believe it is defined by putting your child in harms way that may result in injury or death. Dragging your kid on the back of a bike riding thru traffic and blowing red lights across a 4 lane road of moving traffic apparently doesn't count in New Haven.

Sometimes the fines can reinforce the safety recommendations.

Engineering, engineering, engineering!
" The last E refers to redesigning roads to slow drivers down. New Haven has done a lot of that with city-owned roads. The deadliest roads — including most of those targeted in the current crackdown — are state-owned. New Haven has historically fought, with little success, to convince the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to consider the lives of pedestrians and cyclists rather than prioritizing faster car travel when designing and redesigning streets."
This traffic speed enforcement action is a temporary feel good effort, but once the enforcement isn't around, the streets go right back to traffic as usual. The State DOT needs to reassess all State controlled roads within cities and towns that are in residential pedestrian concentrated neighborhoods in cities and towns where there have been multiple ongoing history of accidents involving pedestrians and bicycles and vehicles and they need to reprioritize the road crossing safety of pedestrians of all abilities and at all stages of life, and bicycles lanes and left turn boxes, and redesign roads to force cars to travel at the posted speed limits.

I, for one, cannot wait to see these officers to start handing out the tickets. There is certainly not shortage of dangerous drivers in this city. Red light runners, speeders, tailgaters, and all-around careless drivers.

Does this "crackdown" apply to the illegal, reckless and very dangerous operators of the dirt bikes, ATVs and scooters that terrorize the streets of New Haven, or will these hoodlums continue to be exempt from the law as usual?

3/5…when will you learn? Your misdirected concern towards so-called "jaywalking" (made up crime) and the actions of cyclists instead of the scofflaw behavior of nearly every car driver (cars kill people, not "jaywalkers") does not land with any reader of the Independent and it's honestly comical to see you comment this every time an article slighty references traffic behavior.

I'm glad to see stepped-up speeding enforcement, but I really wish the CT legislature would have the guts to legalize automated traffic enforcement, instead of these few-week spurts of focus. Cameras would work 24/7 and allow officers to tend to actual issues instead of writing traffic tickets. Plus, once an officer pulls over a driver, everyone else is now free to break the law as usual for the next 10 minutes while the officer is occupied. It's a totally archaic way of traffic enforcement, and as we all know, can lead to bias.

We also have the technology to manufacture cars with GPS-based speed limiters, but apparently that would infringe on our american freedoms and the freedom to run over pedestrians at high speeds always trumps public safety I guess…

The city's policy is to allow dirt-bike riders to pop wheelies while running red lights through crosswalks when pedestrians are crossing the street legally.

Will that change if those dirt-bike riders exceed the speed limit?

@THREEFIFTHS Violating the technicalities of jaywalking laws is. in many cases, the only easy to cross a street safely here. In the middle of a street, no one is running a red light and driving through a walk sign or trying to make a left turn on red because 'they can make it,' no one is looking left while making an illegal right turn on red, etc. often while holding cell phones in one hand.

The best way to cross a street in New Haven, because there is no enforcement of 'yield to pedestrian' laws is in the middle of an intersection when traffic is stopped.

You can blame people who don't want to die for violating laws because other laws are not enforced but enforcing those laws is a better option. I mean, ferchrisske, city policy is to allow dirt-bike riders to run red lights while popping wheelies through downtown intersections - and the solution is to write tickets to pedestrians who violate laws in self-defense??? This makes sense why?

I'm laughing a little too hard at this. Beware all we are going to enforce the law briefly! New Haven is lawless! Noisy mufflers, double parking is worse than ever, half the fire hydrants in the city are blocked! Don't want to wait at the light? No problem just cross into oncoming traffic and go through the light. I realize there's a ton of crime here but, quality of life matters too. Most streets are race tracks!!

I would like to thank Dennis for his statistics, on the decrease in numbers in MV stops. Events involving police during MV stops, were always potentially dangerous. Long before the BLM using them as a catalyst to bring out people to protest. Annually Police Officers nationwide, are killed and maimed by stops that go wrong. The far end of the scale would be to stop doing any motor vehicle enforcement, or increasing it to a point where it finally has some impact on the trends of operation that have grown worse, and more dangerous every year. Pedestrians run over, killed; Major MV accidents killing and maiming increasing annually; racing packs of outlaw motorcyclists so large the police cannot safely stop them, and who attack other pedestrians, and create threats to the safety of anyone who finds themselves caught in the middle of one of these huge gangs; trucks speeding in residential neighborhoods, creating safety hazards and noise levels so great homes vibrate as they pass; loud cars and pickups, SUVs, with stereo systems, or exhaust systems well beyond limits set by state motor vehicles laws, that are NEVER ENFORCED! But elected officials give the orders. Mayor Elicker orders the NHPD not to enforce for fear of losing the votes of people his advisors tell them find these conditions part of their cultural right. He is wrong. His advisors are wrong. And none of them have ever done any polling to find out if there is any truth to these racist, and false beliefs. This press conference is a classic "dog and pony" show. Done to try and make the unknowing public that something is being done to address an issue of public safety that city hall is being pressured about daily. Instead of responding to the public outcry, with some policy that would effectively stop the mayhem, they use media smoke and mirrors. A classic tactic used daily by elected officials, or those running for office. The press locally are PR for the press releases of these officials.

And to the police officers tasked with this, please don't get caught up in this hype. Be assured any stop that becomes the slightest bit controversial, the Mayor's Office, and your direct supervisor's will be forced to destroy your career, if not your personal reputation, with labels assigned by a sensationalized media, posing as journalists. Media is just using formats that look like "news" to increase ratings. It lacks facts. The people reading scripts supplied to them by writers of the news who stay in studios, and NEVER go out to find out facts about a story they will push out to enhance their resume for a larger job, somewhere else, in the MEDIA field. To the cops on the motorcycles, your life is in far more danger, moving about in traffic that is out of control locally, than it has ever been. You have no protection. Your bike is not like being in a police car. Your work combines the dangers of operating a motorcycle among other motorists who don't see you, with doing maneuvers you would do in a police car, with out the protective shell. I witnessed an NHPD mounted officer, coming west on Trumbull St, between Orange, and Temple, racing with lights and siren, to the aid of another officer in and accident nearby, have a car pull out of a driveway of a lawyers office, into his path. He was up in the air, upside down, airborne. His landing looked like Evil Knievel hitting the pavement at Caesar's Palace! He lived, but lives , and will live the rest of his life, with the deteriorating joints that had to be fixed due to that collision. (LB) Take the overtime; use the Pastore approach, circa 1993. Smile, and wave at everyone, don't arrest anyone. God Bless you, your family, and don't get hurt. Remember quotas are illegal; bosses threatening to take you off your bike if you don't make more arrest IS ILLEGAL. That is what this article is speaking about; forced arrests. Don't do it.

A friend of a friend of a friend who attended this presser swears that when Lt Torquati warned motorists about speeding along the major roads, he quietly muttered under his lips "This grant only applies to drivers of regular passenger-type cars. The drivers of the ATVs and dirt bikes are still exempt from this stepped-up enforcement because lawmakers and important members of the community don't have the stomach to make it apply to them, too. So there is no way in heck I'm instructing my officers to go after them."

Seems like everybody on here agrees that it's all a Big Show by the mayor to act like he cares when really there will be no enforcement. Our politicians are failing us from the local to the state to the federal level. Everyone need to start voting Republican, unless you like the way City of New Haven is being run.

Please get this team to Townsend Ave immediately. Not only is this road treated like a drag strip, but many of us have had our own property damaged by wreckless speeders who lose control on this road and end up in our yards or colliding with our vehicles. Woodward Ave is a close second in this area.

I look forward to seeing this crew in action; however, I fear that $50k and a few weeks is not enough to make lasting change for those who use these streets to speed, race, etc. @NHPD What is the long-term plan for enforcement beyond Sept. 6th?

posted by: Robert Moses on August 20, 2021 8:10pm

3/5…when will you learn? Your misdirected concern towards so-called "jaywalking" (made up crime) and the actions of cyclists instead of the scofflaw behavior of nearly every car driver (cars kill people, not "jaywalkers") does not land with any reader of the Independent and it's honestly comical to see you comment this every time an article slighty references traffic behavior.

Your misdirected concern towards so-called "jaywalking" (made up crime) Made of crime.It is on the books in all 50 states.You are going to tell me that.you do not see people Jay walking cyclists who dart right in front of a car.Run red lights.Ride on the sidewalk.In fact just today 0n my way to the edge of the woods.I almost got rear end it,Because a lady with a child in head and pushing a Baby Stroller Dart out in the street to catch the bus across the street.In fact.Honolulu has now made it illegal to text while you are crossing the street.Are you going to tell me you do not see people texting and crossing the street.Check this out.Notice this Guy I do not give A Shit

For many New Yorkers, crossing the street in the middle of the block or against the light is a way of life, part of an attitude that tells everybody, 'I'm walkin' here!'

'Of course I jaywalk!' says 70-year-old Peter Standish, a retired corporate attorney and lifelong New Yorker, adding that he occasionally texts, reads and even does crossword puzzles while crossing. 'I do look up often,' he noted.

But with 12 pedestrians deaths so far this year, new Mayor Bill de Blasio is taking aim at that defiant attitude with steps that include increased awareness of the dangers and, in some places, a crackdown on an offense that has been long ignored. Police are actually handing out tickets to jaywalkers.

This is why NYPD Is Cracking Down.They need to do the same here in New Haven

@DEVAGHOST.Look whatI wrote in 2019

posted by: THREEFIFTHS on December 21, 2019 12:10pm

As I said before.To fix this problem.It takes cooperation of Cyclists Pedestrians and Vehicle Operators.Now I look this up.The Connecticut statute against jaywalking stipulates that any pedestrian who "negligently or recklessly" disregards traffic signals or the signals of an officer, or who "recklessly disregards" their own safety will be fined between $35 and $55. I believe in equal enforcement of motor vehicle laws.In fact the other day.I saw a Cyclist run into a baby stroller on the sidewalk.Him and the mother got into a Shouting match.In fact in the research I did .I found Countries that enforce motor vehicle laws have less accidents.Look at Distracted Walking which is on the rise.Now let me say this.As far as the people who got tickets for cross on the diagonal at an intersection. Again As I said before.To fix this problem.It takes cooperation of Cyclists Pedestrians and Vehicle Operators.

Class Is Now In Session.

Let's Go Walking! Lesson 2: Crossing Streets Safely

https://youtu.be/_jCpBH5zehI

Let's Go Walking! Lesson 3: Crossing Intersections Safely

https://youtu.be/bQVcdaW2TuY

Also New York And Other States Are Using VISION ZERO.What I like about VISION ZERO is responsibility is shared.

Vision Zero is a global movement to end traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by taking a systemic approach to road safety. First implemented as the national road policy in Sweden in 1997, Vision Zero has now been adopted by more than 20 cities around the world.

https://visionzerochallenge.org/vision-zero

This is why NYPD Is Cracking Down. They need to do the same here in New Haven.

AMEN!

NYC has Vision Zero.
HVN has Zero Vision.

I get the weekly update from the Westville/ West Hills district it's a pretty short list of things that happen in a week. Someone please explain what the police do all week and why we have to pay overtime for them to do what they're already supposed to be doing. I can't figure it out. Danger is no longer the excuse, many jobs are more dangerous and pay less. If a system is broken and cannot be repaired, replace it. Don't throw more money at it. There are better alternatives to our system of "policing".