Put The Brakes On This Idea
Any legislator – politician! – who wants the entire city to change the speed limit to 20 mph on city streets should be forced to get in a car and drive from Rockaway to any other part of the city going 20 mph the whole way. Daniel O’Donnell, a state assemblyman, is the latest to push for lowering speed limits in the entire city to a crawl. O’Donnell represents the upper west side of Manhattan. His district office is less than 500 feet from the nearest subway. Of course, most people don’t need cars in Manhattan. In fact, a lot of people in Manhattan want cars out of the entire borough. If that can’t happen, let’s just make driving as unpleasant as possible, they must figure.
Twenty miles per hour? Easy for them to say!
It’s one thing to put the speed limit within a few blocks of a school but as an overall speed limit it’s ridiculous. Take a test yourself. Take a drive along Beach Channel Drive or Seagirt
Boulevard and don’t let the speedometer go past 20.
A twenty mile hour speed limit is absurd. And worse, it would too easily be used as a way for the City to collect money from traffic tickets. If you want fines and police pulling over motorists all day long, the 20 mile speed limit is for you.
Mayor de Blasio wants to make city streets safer for pedestrians and that’s an honorable goal. But that involves more than speed limits. Some accidents occur because of lousy drivers, poor street design, and even careless people. (People do walk into traffic, oblivious to oncoming cars). Cops can ticket speeders at the current limit; public service/ education campaigns can be launched. But lowering the speed limit to 20 on all city streets is just a dumb idea. Why not lower it to 10?! The streets will be that much safer and it will still be faster than a horse drawn carriage! Please.
If anyone should slow down, it’s lawmakers pushing this idea.
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