1 day Ago By Post Editorial Board
After a speed fiend going twice the limit mowed down a mother and her three young children , New York needs to get serious about getting dangerous drivers off the road. Don’t stop at suspending their licenses; start routinely impounding their cars. Miriam Yarimi had a jaw-dropping 93 traffic violations on her record , racked up more than $10,000 in fines and was driving on a suspended license when her car slammed into the family.
Natasha Saada and her two daughters, Diana, 7, and Deborah, 5, were killed; Philip, 4, miraculously survived but was badly injured. No more. In a report last year, the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas found that yanking vehicles off the road after five or more traffic violations would’ve prevented 26 of the 142 deaths from fatal crashes in 2022, an 18% drop in the toll.
Certainly, Yarimi should’ve lost her car long ago. City law allows the impounding of cars with $350 or more in unpaid tickets; any district attorney, or the city Sheriff’s Office, could and should get moving proactively on that basis — at least against those in the $10,000 club. Start with this: Seize the vehicle of every scofflaw caught driving on a suspended license, or at least every one caught committing a fresh violation.
After all, it’s not easy to get a suspended New York license; the driver usually must commit multiple dangerous violations, like reckless driving, speeding and driving the wrong way, within 18 months. A suspension is supposed to keep you from getting behind the wheel; if that doesn’t work, the logical next step is taking away the wheel. In 2020, the City Council approved a program that required the registered owners of vehicles that get a high number of speeding or red-light camera violations in a short period of time to take a safety course or have their vehicle impounded.
That program lapsed in 2023, but it’s a possible framework for a state law. Every car is as deadly a potential weapon as any firearm; law enforcement must protect innocents from those who refuse to drive with due regard for the safety of others. This should be a political gimme: No one wants out-of-control drivers on the road.
And if the Legislature can’t pass something to get them off, it’s fresh proof New York needs new legislators..
