Where Have All the Speeding Tickets Gone?

Gotten a speeding ticket lately? Just kidding! They don’t give those here. According to the Brooklyn Paper, not a single speeding ticket was issued here in the 78th through all of June. The 77th precinct (Prospect/Crown Heights) followed suit, and in the 88th (Fort Greene/Clinton Hill), police went wild and issued a whopping two (2) tickets.

This would all be one thing if we were just the best, most conscious drivers in the history of motor vehicles, but judging from daily observation, we’re not. And it’s not that the police aren’t around — also in June, those same three precincts issued a combined 513 tickets to drivers using cellphones behind the wheel (also important!). But speeding seems to be no big deal. So what’s going on here?

Well…we don’t really know:

The 77th, 78th, and 88th precincts, as well as the main NYPD press office, did not respond to requests for comment. But city officials acknowledge that speeding is a problem in Brooklyn: a recent Department of Transportation study found that 39 percent of Lafayette Avenue motorists exceed the speed limit of 30 miles per hour.

To clarify, everyone (except maybe the NYPD?) agrees that speeding in brownstone Brooklyn is a thing that is happening. Given that street safety advocates say speeding is the main cause for fatal crashes citywide, it seems like we can all agree that it’s a bad thing that’s happening.

In other parts of the city, speeding laws are enforced. But here — where the number of cyclists on the road would seem to require more regulation — speeding doesn’t seem to be on the precincts’ agendas.

A spokesperson from Brad Lander’s office did mention to me recently that addressing the problem is one of the Councilman’s upcoming projects, thought what exactly that will mean is TBA. In the meantime, anybody got any insight?