New Yorkers who’ve nearly had their toes run over by crazed bicyclists — that would be about all of them, at one time or another — can only take heart from news of the NYPD’s crackdown on two-wheeled marauders.
The department is writing tickets for bicycle violations at a rate 48 percent higher than a year ago, to which we say: Right on!
There are law-abiding bicyclists, sure. Individually, they probably all respect the statute book — when it’s convenient, and when they see cops on the lookout for violators.
But rare indeed is the New Yorker who hasn’t come within a hair’s breadth of being flattened by a bike-delivery guy busting up the wrong way on a one-way street, or a sidewalk biker tooling along.
Even Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan’s ubiquitous bike lanes haven’t made the streets any safer. Far too many pedallers view them as speedways — and pedestrians be damned.
So, again, good news that the cops are cracking down.
Officers have written some 14,000 tickets so far this year, up from 9,300 during the same period a year ago (and 3,700 in 2009). Running red lights, riding on the sidewalk and riding against traffic lead the list of violations.
Now, we’d hate to think that the department is pushing back at Sadik-Khan for trying to shift the blame for the Christmas blizzard breakdown from her own shoulders — where it belongs — onto Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s — where it most certainly does not.
Surely, that would be wrong.
(Wink, wink.)
No, the bikers are drawing the NYPD’s attention because they have earned it — and if the department can be faulted at all, it’s for not cracking down years ago.
The cops need to keep it up.