Tickets For Traffic Violations Up 75% In Bensonhurst Area

Summonses issued for traffic violations have gone up 75 percent in the Bensonhurst area this February when compared to February 2013’s ticket numbers. This increase follows the citywide trend, where increases have been as high as 322 percent in some neighborhoods.

According to data collected and analyzed by WNYC, issued tickets last year were “strikingly low” and this February there has been a rapid increase in traffic enforcement, leading to a huge increase in traffic violations across the city. Last February, the 62nd Precinct, which covers Bensonhurst, issued 77 tickets for major moving violations. This February, they issued 135 tickets.

Here is a look at how Bensonhurst compares to other neighborhoods:

In the Upper West Side’s 24th precinct, where three people were killed in early January, officers wrote 64 tickets in those three major categories, compared to 47 last year. In the 71st precinct in Crown Heights , where a 5-year-old was killed Sunday night, tickets nearly tripled, from 73 to 213. The 110th precinct in Queens, which contains three major thoroughfares (Roosevelt Avenue, Broadway, and Queens Boulevard) wrote the most tickets—317—but that was slightly fewer than the February 2013 total of 340. The 111th precinct, which is in a residential part of Queens, wrote the fewest—just 21 for the month.

February was the first month of the NYPD’s implementation of elements of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero campaign, which aims to reduce traffic-related fatalities. As part of the plan, officers are called on to increase enforcement against the most dangerous kinds of violations, including speeding, failure to yield to pedestrians, and using a cellphone while driving. The plan also calls for the reduction of speed limits to 20 miles per hour on many city streets.

Locally, Councilman David Greenfield has called for additional crossing guards to be included in the plan.

The NYPD reports 171 car collisions, which could involve pedestrians and cyclists, in the 62nd Precinct during February 2014. No deaths were reported. There were 15,683 collisions reported citywide, resulting in 2,312 injuries and 12 deaths.