Mayor Bill de Blasio was surprised Friday morning to find reporters and TV cameras waiting outside his residence in Park Slope to question him about speedgate.
The mayor, who said he was rushing to the gym, avoided answering direct questions about his drivers violating traffic rules, saying the speeding, stop sign-blowing street maneuvers are a matter of police “security protocols.”
“Guys, listen, you need to talk to the NYPD, they can tell you about the security protocols that the drivers observe,” he said.“We take very seriously the NYPD protocols, the NYPD training, so please talk to them,” he said.
Asked if he thought it was hypocritical to lay out rules that his own drivers don’t follow, de Blasio said, “Again, talk to the NYPD.”
“I’ve got to go to the gym,” the mayor said when asked if he would stick to the traffic rules. “So let me say again, the NYPD provides security protocols for the drivers. Talk to them about that. We’re very serious about Vision Zero, we’re very committed to it. We’re going to keep moving forward on it.”
De Blasio added that he will be holding a press conference later on Friday, where reporters can ask “all the questions they want.”
As the mayor left his home to City Hall, his security stopped the Daily News from tailing them to see if they were obeying traffic rules. After leaving the mayor’s Park Slope home on 11th Street just after 10 a.m., the black SUV carrying de Blasio turned onto Sixth Avenue, where it stopped briefly for a red light.
When the light turned green, de Blasio’s car headed off. But the second NYPD SUV following it – part of mayor’s large security detail – lingered behind, blocking the car carrying a Daily News reporter and photographer.
It’s unclear why the SUV paused for about about 15 seconds at a green light, but once it moved forward, de Blasio’s SUV was completely out of sight.
The mayor arrived at City Hall about 20 minutes later, flanked by aides with his head down and his mouth shut.
This was the third time in a matter of hours that the mayor refused to discuss the dangerous incident, which was captured on camera by CBS 2 reporter Marcia Kramer.
Earlier in the morning as he was walking to the gym, Mayor de Blasio and his security detail were caught on camera crossing a Brooklyn street against the light. Exclusive video taken by The Post caught the mayor chatting on his cellphone as he sauntered across 11th Street on 6th Avenue in Park Slope, ignoring the orange hand on the traffic signal that clearly warns pedestrians not to cross.
According to the Post, de Blasio and his police security posse set off down 11th Street, toward 6th Ave, ignoring the pedestrian “don’t walk” warning as they crossed to 10th Street around 7:25 am.
A short time later, the mayor declined to answer questions, quipping “have a nice day!” as he ducked into his SUV for the drive to City Hall.
Just recently, the Mayor announces tougher rules and an offensive crackdown on jaywalkers. “We need to be sensitive to the fact that we do have a way of life, and many of us who’ve been here know that,” de Blasio said. “But we have to educate people to the dangers. There’s a lot more vehicles in this town than there used to be.”
Listen to this reporter discussing #speedgate on 1010 WINS:
(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)
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8 Responses
The fuss over the mayor’s driver’s speeding is remarkable, since every mayor since the invention of the automobile has probably been driven around by the police department the same way. Maybe there are good reasons for security that the mayor has to be sped about town, and maybe not, but nothing is going on that hasn’t gone on for years. As for the mayor’s recommendation that lives could be saved if speed and other traffic laws were better enforced, he’s probably right, and the way his drivers drive is marginally putting people at greater risk than if he travelled at the same speed as the rest of us, but that does not mean his proposal for better speed-law and traffic-law enforcement is incorrect. Possibly a little hypocritical, but not incorrect. And, as I said, it’s nothing new, so stop with the fuss about it.
To #1,
The mayor’s ride is blowing trough stop signs and speeding through the streets of queens 2 days after his campaign to crackdown on dangerous driving and you think it might be “a little hypocritical?!” NFGO3–where do you find the time to be a professional ywn commenter, weighing in on every article posted and be on the
de blassio payroll simultaneously?
To Commenter No. 2: I am not on any politician’s payroll, and my comments are not as prolific as you suggest.
With respect to the first sentence of your comment, I suggest you re-read my comment and tell me what facts, if any, I got wrong.
nfgo3–while it may be true that previous mayors have been driven in the same manner, none of them were as smug/dumb as our current uber lefty/commie mayor to be caught 48 hrs after making a huge pronouncement about forcing the public to drive safer. its so preposterous, well beyond the usual limousine liberal nonsense that we have to put up with, that even the liberal lapdog media is up in arms over this.
Re comment no. 4: You apparently agree that the smug/dumb uber commie/lefty mayor’s proposal is a good one that will make the streets safer. And you think that with the thousands of vehicles on the City’s streets, one car (the mayor’s) not observing the traffic laws will not have a material adverse effect on the safety of the City’s streets. So you don’t object to the mayor’s proposal, you just prefer to call him a smug/dumb uber commie/lefty. That’s OK by me, and (perhaps) more importantly the US constitution.
Nfgo3–u miss the point again. You are correct in that I’m not opposed to the mayor’s traffic law proposals. I am however opposed to the hypocricy of publicly flouting the very laws he’s proposed 2 days later, a point that’s either eluded you or something you apparently have no problem with. As for the “name calling” it has nothing to do with these traffic proposals and everything to do with his politics, his support of sandinistas in nicaragua, his robin hood/tale of 2 cities gimmick of stealing (or in your words I’m sure, “redistributing”) from the core tax payers to end the (fake) war on poverty (a liberal’s utopian fantasy that’s been tried many times already never going to work) among other things.
Re comment no. 6: Perhaps I did not make my point clearly to you. It is this: There is no hypocrisy when the mayor makes a proposal that is otherwise sound, but for security reasons does not apply to his official vehicle, which is driven by trained security professionals. If you disagree with his other policies, like robin hood taxation, so be it, but he has not made an unsound proposal for better pedestrian safety. And since the mayor has no power over foreign policy, his support of sandanistas is unlikely to figure into his decisions about things over which he has actual authority, like traffic laws or snow removal. Was there anything about the snow removal of the last 2 months that was too communistical for you?
How exactly does speeding, not signalling and blowing through traffic signs make debalssio’s commuting more secure? Wouldn’t logic (something rarely used by commenter #7) dictate that this would make it less secure? (See corzine, jon 2007 car accident caused by speeding.) So I’m gonna spell it out for the clueless, hopelessly naive libs led by commenter #7: de blassio speeds and breaks laws BECAUSE HE CAN. Bloomberg used to tell his drivers to obey traffic laws, something de blassio obviously doesn’t. So if you think his traffic proposals originate with some deeply held belief that he cares so much about ny road safety, well guess what? He doesn’t. Actions speak much louder than words. This is just another gimmick for de blasio to regulate and take more money out of nyers pockets while he smugly disobeys the same traffic laws. “Do as I say not as I do–Liberal Politics 101 at its best.