A small contingent of more than 50 family members and street safety advocates rallied and lobbied lawmakers earlier this month to urge them to pass a package of four transportation aimed at slowing down traffic and curtailing persistent out-of-control speeding drivers bills before the session ends next month. Every day in New York state, three people are killed on our roadways just trying to get to their destination safely.
Among the folks who made the trek to the Capitol last week was a Brooklyn woman whose son died almost 12 years ago in Prospect Park. Sammy was 12 years old.
“We’re here today for a package of bills called the Safe Streets Act. He [Sammy] was just trying to get from middle school to soccer practice. He was killed in front of our apartment building. It’s a heartache no parent should ever have to endure,” Amy Cohen, a Prospect Park resident, told The Jewish Press. “Chuck Schumer is my neighbor. He lives just a couple of doors down from me. Soon after Sammy died, I encountered him coming out of the building. He was on his phone and people drive really fast on Prospect Park West. I started screaming at him, ‘What are you going to do?’ This is so deadly. He has been an ally ever since.”
More than a decade after her son’s death, Cohen said time doesn’t heal the gaping hole in her heart. “It doesn’t make it any easier. He was an amazing kid. He was bright. He was kind. He was at the top of his class. He was an athlete. He was really determined. I do this work channeling his courage,” she said. “My husband goes to visit Sammy’s grave regularly. It’s too hard for me.”
One of the bills Cohen wants to see voted for would require that when drivers pass bicyclists, they have to give the bicyclists a minimum of three feet so they can have a fair share of the road. “Bicyclists must yield to pedestrians. It’s a stop and yield bill,” she explained. “A huge piece of solving this crisis is building our streets with safety as a priority.”
Another measure would help curtail super-speeders on the road. “There is 30-year-old technology called Intelligent Speed Assistance. The bill would require that the worst of the worst drivers get this,” Cohen said. “They can still get around – we’re not taking away their right to drive. If a person’s license is suspended for speeding (it turns out 75 percent of drivers are speeding anyway), then put this technology in the car.”
Cohen and her family attend services at the unaffiliated Park Slope-based synagogue Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives.
Another grieving parent at the advocacy day was Patricia Sawyer, 59, from the Albany suburb of Guilderland. Her son, Roger, left his house at five a.m. on October 19, 2017. “He was walking to the bus stop to go to work when a motorist driving an SUV began to speed up,” Sawyer recalled. A half-hour later, Roger was declared dead at a local hospital. “The driver who hit my son was going 70 miles per hour, [and] slowed down to 65 miles per hour to beat the light before it turned red,” Sawyer told The Jewish Press. “While in the crosswalk, Roger was hit and was dragged 100 feet before the driver stopped. He had more than 2,000 people at his funeral.”
Sawyer said she still has trouble sleeping and gets a strange feeling around 5:30 a.m., the approximate time of Roger’s death. She doesn’t go to the cemetery to visit her son’s grave. “On the anniversary of his death I don’t go to the cemetery I go to the site where he got hit and killed. I feel closer to him by doing that,” she said, recalling, “He was a wrestler. He graduated from high school with honors in 2005, where he wrestled for his entire high school career. He also won the Empire State Games, while in college. He was charming. He was passionate for other people.”
The only penalty the speeding driver got was a fine.
“It’s not justice. The police know who the guy is. He did not get charged with a crime. Unlicensed drivers only face a violation in New York state when they hit and kill someone. It is a $350 fine,” Sawyer said.
She doesn’t want other people to feel the pain she is still suffering from. “I’m pushing a bill that unlicensed drivers should be charged with vehicular manslaughter when they hit and kill someone. The bill keeps going to the Codes Committee [in the Senate and Assembly] and getting rewritten,” she said. “I’m here to show face, keep the people knowing who I am and what bill I’m fighting for, but I’m mainly here to support other families because no one should go through this. I’m trying to prevent that from happening to someone else.”
