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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Amber Adler, Member of Families for Safe Streets
1:55:25
·
3 min
Amber Adler, a car crash survivor and member of Families for Safe Streets, testifies about the need for speed limiter devices in vehicles to prevent traffic fatalities. She shares personal experiences and discusses a recent tragic accident in her neighborhood, emphasizing the potential life-saving impact of proposed legislation.
- Adler references the "Stop Super Speeders" bill (A2299/S4045) which would require speed limiters for repeat traffic offenders
- She highlights that vehicles with 16 speeding violations are twice as likely to be involved in fatal crashes
- Adler mentions similar bills enacted in Washington D.C., Virginia, and passed in Georgia and Washington state legislatures
Amber Adler
1:55:25
Yeah I have it.
1:55:26
Alright thanks.
1:55:28
Hi I'm Amber Adler.
1:55:30
I'm a car crash survivor, also a member of Families for Safe Streets.
1:55:35
I'm also a resident of Southern Brooklyn and I live just a few blocks away from where the Ocean Parkway crash happened just a few weeks ago and killed Natasha Sada and her two daughters and left her son fighting for his life.
1:55:51
I know, I knew people on both sides of that.
1:55:55
The driver, Ellie, should not have been driving.
1:55:59
Many times she's called Miriam but it's Ellie to most people that know her.
1:56:04
But she was.
1:56:05
She was driving.
1:56:07
And like many super speeders, she didn't have a valid license.
1:56:12
She didn't care that she didn't have a valid license.
1:56:14
And she still got behind the wheel of her car.
1:56:17
Now had the stopped super speeders bill, which is proposed right now, bill a in the assembly, a two thousand two ninety nine in the senate, state senate, s 4,045, had it been passed last session, it wouldn't have made her not get in her car.
1:56:37
But she would have gotten a car and there would have been a device that would have stopped her from going more than five miles per hour over the speed limit.
1:56:45
Now this is a huge deal.
1:56:49
This is a huge deal.
1:56:50
Sorry.
1:56:51
I get it it hurts because for obvious reasons.
1:56:59
That car couldn't have hit that high speed and the lives that day could have possibly been saved.
1:57:07
They might not have been deaths.
1:57:08
They might have been recoveries.
1:57:10
And really they might have been neither because if she wasn't going that fast her car wouldn't have been able flip in that capacity.
1:57:18
It did slide down the street and crush a mother just crossing her kids across Ocean Parkway.
1:57:26
Some vehicles, as you know, are getting hundreds of tickets every year.
1:57:30
And it's just a matter of time before another super speeder kills.
1:57:35
There's vehicles with so many violations.
1:57:40
I think factually 16 speeding violations are twice as likely to be involved in a car crash that leads to death.
1:57:46
Similar bills to what I was mentioning before were enacted in the District Of Columbia and also Virginia and passed in the state legislature in Georgia and in Washington.
1:57:57
And on an even more personal note, last year on Ocean Parkway, my eldest son who was about to be in bar mitzvah was almost hit by a car as we crossed Ocean Parkway to go to his yeshiva.
1:58:12
That was a Sunday morning when people say it's not as busy, nobody cared apparently, the driver did not care.
1:58:19
There were no traffic agents because yeshivas are schools but they don't have traffic agents on Sundays even though they're all active.
1:58:29
And I was with him so you know he went just a little bit in front of me and it didn't matter because in that location, like many other locations, there's not much more you can do to the streets.
1:58:41
That is an evacuation route actually.
1:58:43
There's really not a lot you can do to the streets there.
1:58:46
And once again making it even more important, these speed limiter devices in case like this.
1:58:52
Now Thank you very much.
1:58:57
I just I want to thank the council for even hearing this and I really urge you to support anything whatsoever.
1:59:03
Not just this but all things that can help prevent.
Yusef Salaam
1:59:06
Absolutely.
1:59:07
And thank you for your testimony.
1:59:08
If you have the testimony that you were reading, I would love to have that submitted as well.
Amber Adler
1:59:13
I have.
1:59:13
I might have swid off of it a few times because I sort of get choked up in a little in the moment with things.
Tiffany Cabán
1:59:20
Absolutely.