This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated February 11, 2022
Two weeks ago in this column, I wrote about how during a span of seven days in January, three teenagers were hit in three different Southern Brooklyn crosswalks by the drivers of large vehicles, leaving two hospitalized with critical injuries and taking the life of 15-year-old Antonina Zatulovska. On Saturday, February 5, 99-year-old Jack Mikulincer was killed in Manhattan Beach while attempting to cross the street.
Mikulincer, a Holocaust survivor, had tuned 99 two weeks earlier. On his way to synagogue, he was slammed into by the driver of a BMW SUV at the intersection of Coleridge Street and Oriental Boulevard. A photo from the scene showed the electric scooter he was riding in, draped with the reflective vest he had been wearing. The intersection has no traffic signal or stop sign and the nearest crosswalk across Oriental Boulevard is three blocks away.
About every three days, a pedestrian is killed in New York City. The Reckless Driver Accountability Act was passed two years ago this month. The original bill would have allowed the city to seize cars after five school zone speeding violations in one year, but then-Mayor de Blasio only agreed to sign it if the threshold was tripled to 15 violations.
The BMW that plowed into Mikulincer has been ticketed for speeding in school zones six times in the past year, with four additional speeding violations and four tickets for failing to stop at a red light in the five-plus years prior. If the Reckless Driver Accountability Act had not been watered down, the vehicle that killed Miklulincer would likely not have been on the street.
“The story of Jack’s life is one of a survivor and a hero. His life needs to be remembered.”
Citation….
Seizing vehicles that have been excessively ticketed is one tool to improve street safety, but it will not stop those with the means to just get another car from continuing to drive. The Crash Victims Rights and Safety Act is a package of bills currently moving through the legislative process in Albany, but it requires more attention because the current state of traffic violence has made clear that we cannot wait to take action.
By lowering speed limits, ensuring street redesigns prioritize safety measures, educating drivers, and guaranteeing rights to crash victims and their loved ones in the legal system, this legislation would be part of a comprehensive approach, which is what is needed to make streets safer.
It is heartbreaking that Jack Mikulincer, who had lived through the Holocaust in Europe and later worked with the KGB to bring Nazis to justice, lost his life in this way. His late wife, who was a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, had suffered debilitating injuries from a car crash about thirty years before. Her family attributed her death a decade ago to complications from ongoing health issues stemming from her time in Auschwitz and from the car crash that had seriously injured her.
Jack was on his way to services for the sabbath when he was killed. Just a block from the synagogue he visited regularly is Holocaust Memorial Park at the west end of the bay. It is a beautiful park and memorial that everyone in Brooklyn should make a point to visit. The inscriptions on granite stones within the park tell the stories of thousands of individuals and families affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust, as well as descriptions of historical events with significance to Jewish history.
The story of Jack’s life is one of a survivor and a hero. His life needs to be remembered. Making streets safer from the traffic violence that affected the lives of Jack and his family is a way to honor his memory.
We do not have to accept living with this traffic violence epidemic. I have said this multiple times the past few years, but I am tired of writing these columns, and by that, I mean those that cover yet another pedestrian death. Whether 3-year-old Emur Shavkator in 2019, 7-year-old Sama Ali in 2020, 99-year-old Jack Mikulincer this month or the many others I have written about, my message continues to be the same: we need to honor the memory of those lost to traffic violence by fighting for safer streets.
