Curb unfit drivers
To The Editor: Over the years of reading the Police Blotter section, there have been numerous references to traffic accidents where pedestrians, bicyclists et al. have been killed, maimed, critically injured, with the explanation that the motorist “lost control of the vehicle,” “accidentally stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes,” etc. Almost invariably the article ends by saying that “the police did not file any criminal charges.”
In some of these incidents, the driver is said to be elderly. In another case, a middle-aged diabetic man killed a woman on a bicycle, despite being warned by two doctors not to drive. I saw this latter case on “Court TV.”
My point — beside the lack of criminal prosecution — is why are people who are physically, mentally or emotionally unfit to drive a vehicle permitted to do so? Why are they not screened out for the sake of public safety? I understand that these are “accidents” and there was no intent to kill or maim. However, the victims are just as dead, just as maimed as if there was criminal intent. I am not attacking senior citizens. But if a senior citizen, or anyone of any age is not physically, mentally or emotionally capable of operating a vehicle safely, they need to be removed from the streets and roads.
According to “Court TV,” some 748 bicyclists are killed each year in traffic accidents. Some 45,000 are injured yearly. I wonder, how many were caused by unfit motorists?
Michael Gottlieb
Sex sells on Christopher
To The Editor: I’m very upset that yet another store on Christopher St. between Bleecker and Hudson Sts. is turning into a sex shop. Between Seventh Ave. S. and Hudson St. the area is littered with sex and head shops ablaze in neon lights. Do you have any advice, or is this inevitable because somehow these are the people paying the prices for rents?
Marylee Burns
Ivanka, stop the madness!
To The Editor: Re “Trump Hotel on hold for now, but Trump Hole coming soon” (news article, Nov. 8):
Ivanka, visit your grandfather’s achievement in Coney Island, as I have, and see people living in affordable housing. Stop the travesty of your father, Donald’s, supersizing our historic area and further alienating and angering the many people here that do not want another sky-piercing structure that conveys to the community we are not welcome and encourages pushing out long-term community members and closing small businesses.
Your family legacy was not meant to be what it has become, and you must speak to your father and tell him enough is enough.
Respect our zoning laws, our community, our neighborhood and our long-term community members, and do not supersize Varick and Spring Sts.
There is growing rage here in New York City among the people who are not the developers and we are the majority making up a population of millions. We are outraged by the over-the-top development that radically changes the face of New York that we all loved and high walls that exclude the community that made the area so desirable to your mega-wealthy clients. Ultimately, by supersizing and making these elite supersized structures, you are also forcing out the very community members that made the area so hip. And where do you imagine they will move to and live?
Suzannah B. Troy
