Re-Up Program to Curb Reckless Driving, Comptroller Lander Recommends in New Policy Study

New York, NY — As the Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program (DVAP), a first of its kind attempt to introduce accountability for repeat reckless drivers, is set to expire, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander issued recommendationsfor reauthorizing and strengthening the City’s program for curbing reckless driving. As a Council Member, Lander sponsored the Reckless Driver Accountability Act to create DVAP in 2020, building upon lessons from the Center for Justice Innovation’s Driver Accountability Program.

With traffic fatalities reaching a nine-year high in 2021 and still hovering above pre-pandemic numbers, the Comptroller’s office warns that ending DVAP without any credible extension or replacement will leave the City with no driver accountability measures to tackle a serious public safety concern.

“Traffic crashes are consistently a leading cause of preventable deaths in New York City – and reckless driving is too often the cause,” said Comptroller Lander. “Without the Reckless Driver Accountability Act, and in the absence of any City or State programs in place to improve or replace it, the City’s transportation department and traffic courts have no tools at their disposal to hold the most dangerous drivers accountable outside of a fine that is currently less than a parking ticket, no matter how many red lights they run or times they speed in school zones.”

The Reckless Driver Accountability Act designed DVAP to target the city’s worst offenders (measured by red-light and school speed zone camera violations) with escalating consequences, starting with a course specifically developed to change driver behavior followed by vehicle impoundment for those who fail to comply.

Unfortunately, the Department of Transportation (DOT) failed to implement the program as designed, declining to work with the Center for Justice Innovation on the course and not following through on the legislated scale or key elements. DVAP also started over a year later than expected because of the pandemic.

Originally intended to cover 5,000 vehicles, the DOT only initiated consequences for 1,605 drivers. It then allowed nearly half of these repeat reckless drivers to simply ignore the program altogether. Of the 720 drivers who refused to attend the course, only 12 had their vehicle impounded, due largely to administrative capacity constraints at DOT.

Along with urging the City Council to reauthorize DVAP, the Comptroller’s report lays out a series of recommendations to strengthen the program by addressing capacity challenges, eliminating long delays, and improving the quality of safe driving courses in the process.

Among the recommendations are:

• Engage more reckless drivers. At the time of its passage, the City Council anticipated DVAP would cover 5,000 vehicles. To ensure more people complete the course, the City should:
  • Expand capacity at DOT to operate the program.
  • Work with qualified justice organizations, such as the Center for Justice Innovation, whose work was largely the impetus for the program, to conduct the courses.
  • Reduce the deadline for enrolling in a course from 45 days to 30 days.
  • Offer additional courses to accommodate more participants.
  • Consider a wider range of escalating consequences, based on the number of violations a driver has.
• Improve the quality of the safe driving course. A one-time, 90-minute course is not sufficient to meaningfully change driver behavior. The City should work with experienced researchers, educators, and justice professionals to design a course allowing for deeper engagement with drivers, modeled off successful programs such as the Center for Justice Innovation’s Circles for Safe Streets project.
• Streamline vehicle impoundment cases. Administrative barriers delayed DVAP implementation and diminished its efficacy. Most notably, agencies took six-to-eight months to issue warrants to seize vehicles owned by drivers who failed to complete a safe driving course. The City must act to eliminate these delays, during which drivers can accumulate more violations or obtain new license plates, making vehicles impossible to locate and impound.
  • Expedite the processing of vehicle impoundment cases by adding additional legal capacity at DOT.
  • Advocate for state legislation to authorize local law enforcement to seize vehicles covered under DVAP outside of the five boroughs.
  • Enable data sharing between law enforcement agencies to help locate vehicles flagged for impoundment.
• Conduct a study of reckless driving behavior and violations to inform program expansion and enable more targeted enforcement measures.
  • Pass Intro 415 to build a data-driven understanding of the driving behaviors most closely associated with crashes, craft effective interventions and responses, and tailor enforcement accordingly.

“Every day there are hundreds of incidents of reckless driving and crashes across New York City. Traffic deaths last year were roughly on par with shooting deaths. It’s clear then that we must empower DOT with the tools it needs to better enforce traffic laws and address the most dangerous drivers, who are often repeat offenders. The original DVAP initiative has provided us with data on how to enhance it, and I look forward to working with my colleagues at the City Council to reauthorize a new, improved version that tackles this public safety issue,” said City Council Majority Leader Keith Powers.

“At the Center for Justice Innovation, we work alongside communities and systems to advance safety in all forms, including on our streets,” said Amanda Berman, Senior Director, Regional Programs at the Center for Justice Innovation. “It is critical to continue to invest in innovative approaches that center equity, accountability, and the need for positive behavior change in drivers so that our roads and neighborhoods are safer for all.”

“My Son, Seth, was 22 when he was killed by a reckless driver. Seth was kind, and generous—a loving human being who was an artist studying toy design at FIT. He was brilliant and a leader always helping others. Seth was the center of our lives. According to the newspaper, the driver that killed him had been texting and posting violent messages to Facebook while he was sitting behind the wheel. His driving record also included multiple red-light violations and other safety infractions.” said Debbie Kahn, a founding member of Families for Safe Streets. “Keeping reckless drivers off the streets will save countless lives and protect even more New Yorkers from serious injury. We’re counting on our leaders to reauthorize and strengthen this program to ensure other families don’t have to suffer like mine. Thank you to Comptroller Lander for your constant leadership on this issue and partnership in the fight for safe streets.”

“Reckless drivers make our streets and our communities unsafe,” said Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. “DVAP is a critical program for saving lives and holding our most reckless drivers accountable, and it must be reauthorized, strengthened, and supported by the City. We’re grateful to Comptroller Lander for fighting for this program from the very beginning, and continuing to work to make sure it is as effective as it can be.”

“I can’t recall a bigger missed opportunity than the failure to hold reckless drivers accountable for multiple camera violations,” said Steve Vaccaro, cycling representative and advocate from the Law Office of Vaccaro & White. “We know who the dangerous drivers are and we know where to find them. After years of sitting around and doing far too little, it’s time to strengthen the Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program.”

In 2022, the State authorized the City to turn on speed and red-light cameras 24/7, shining a light on how pervasive reckless driving is. Tens of thousands of drivers accumulated over 15 speed or five red-light camera tickets within the first year. As New York State controls New York City’s speed and red-light camera programs and has the authority to license drivers and register vehicles, the Comptroller’s report also provides recommendations for the State legislature:

• Automatically suspend the registration of vehicles with a high threshold of camera violations, potentially targeting the top 1% of most reckless drivers. An existing bill (S451) sets a threshold at five or more red-light camera violations within one year.
• Install intelligent speed assistance (ISA) devices in vehicles that repeatedly receive camera tickets, as proposed in S7261.
• Authorize New York City and other localities to seize vehicles that violate local laws outside city borders, allowing law enforcement to locate more vehicles flagged under DVAP.
• Report camera violations to vehicle owners’ insurance companies. The original version of the bill to keep speed cameras on 24 hours each day allowed the Department of Motor Vehicles to report camera violations to insurance companies, but the final bill did not include this provision.
• Require the completion of 24 hours of classroom instruction and supervised driving lessons as a condition of reinstatement, in cases of license suspension due to dangerous driving. This parallels existing education requirements for new drivers.
• Eliminate violations unrelated to driver safety as grounds for license suspension, such as failure to pay child support or unpaid fees and fines, to reduce collateral consequences and focus punitive measures squarely on behaviors that create safety hazards.
• Strengthen enforcement and consequences for drivers who use obscured or fraudulent license plates to evade accountability. State-level intervention on this matter is necessary not only to enhance driver accountability but improve public safety more broadly.

You can read the Comptroller’s Danger Unabated policy study here.

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