State lawmakers are urging their peers in Albany to pass a bill that would force chronically reckless drivers to install speed-limiting devices in their vehicles after an unlicensed driver fatally struck a mother and her two children as they crossed a Midwood intersection on Saturday.
Brooklyn State Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assembly member Emily Gallagher have reintroduced a bill that would force drivers who have at least six speeding tickets in the last year to install a device that would prevent their car from exceeding the speed limit by more than five miles per hour. The device would be required in vehicles registered to those who have had their license suspended for reckless driving infractions.
The driver in Saturday’s crash, 32-year-old Miriam Yarimi, would have been required under the proposed law to have a speed-limiting device installed in her car. The blue Audi A3 sedan registered to Yarimi, whose license was suspended, has racked up 99 parking and camera violations between August 2023 and March 23, city data shows. The legislation could have prevented the deaths of the Brooklyn woman and her five and eight year old daughters, said Gounardes.
“This driver and car have no place on our streets,” said Gounardes in a statement. “Suspended licenses are ineffective against this extreme recklessness. The only way to fix this is to physically force vehicles to drive the speed limit.”
Yarimi struck and killed 34-year-old Natasha Saada and her daughters, Diana and Deborah, as they were crossing Ocean Parkway just after 1 p.m. Saada’s four-year-old son was also injured in the crash. On Saturday evening, police charged Yarimi with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, reckless driving, speeding, failure to yield and driving with a suspended license.
Under the legislation, if a judge orders a driver to install a speed-limiting device in their car, the person must provide proof to the state Department of Motor Vehicles that they have installed the system, which is similar to how in-car breathalyzers are currently enforced for motorists convicted of drunk driving, according to Gounardes’ office. The bill also makes it a crime for the person to drive any vehicle without a speed-limiting device; if they’re caught doing so they would be charged with a misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to a year in jail.
Yarimi’s suspended license, in theory, should have deterred her from getting behind the wheel, but nothing physically prevented her from doing so. Saturday’s horrific crash highlightings the lack of mechanisms in New York to hold chronically reckless drivers accountable, but Gounardes and Gallagher’s bill could strengthen enforcement by physically forcing the vehicle to drive slower, said Alexa Sledge, the director of communication for Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit that advocates for street safety laws and infrastructure
“It just shows that suspending licenses isn’t the most effective path forward,” Sledge said in an interview. “For some people automated enforcement and camera tickets just doesn’t deter them, and so we need to have some sort of accountability measure for people that are repeatedly putting everyone else at risk.”
Rachel Weinberger, the director of research and strategy and chair for transportation at the Regional Plan Association, believes the measure would strengthen enforcement against rule-breaking drivers, but worries that motorists would simply skirt the measure by borrowing someone else’s car. The bill should go further by requiring authorities to impound offending vehicles, she added.
New York must continue narrowing streets, redesigning intersections and installing other traffic calming measures on bustling thoroughfares, along with more robust enforcement against scofflaw drivers, to create safer streets for pedestrians and drivers alike, said Weinberger.
“Street design is your first defense, enforcement comes next,” Weinberger said, “and in the case of somebody who just has such willful disregard for the safety of themselves and others, then something more draconian is certainly called for.”
