That was what Amy Cohen,
the mother of Sammy, had to say at the Candlelight Vigil for Pedestrian Safety
held in Queens today. It is a simple
idea. Get Albany out of New York
transportation policy. Put speed cameras
on every street in New York. Charge those speeding with $500.00 tickets, put
points on their licenses, hiking up the price on insurance, and drivers will
slow down. It is that simple.
I always cry when I hearCohen speak, her family standing in full support. The simplicity of her prophetic voice should
be a wakeup call for all. Unless we have
a paradigm shift, casualties are going to continue to rise from the 17
pedestrians deaths we’ve already had this year. In the weeks and months since her son’s death,
her family have connected with others to turn their grief into action.
This weekend, we celebrated
our first child’s birthday full of life, of youthful exuberance of kids with
their lives ahead of them.
Their experience pulsed through
the weekend of birthday parties and bike rides through the snow covered, exquisite,
brutal New York city Street, teeming through my mind on the way to the rally in Bushwick.
All these lives matter,
Keegan explained, standing in front of a banner listing the names of those killed in by cars in 2013 and 2014, starting the rally.
Surrounded by street
activists, Ella Bandes’ mother, Judy, stood to remind the world that nothing much
has changed in the year since her child was killed in the streets at the corner
of Myrtle and Palamento. She confessed she now felt like a bystander to the living.
Grief is the unwelcome guest
who now accompanies us through our days, Cohen explained.
Silence filled the busy
street, the sun starting to set on another day.
 |
| A supporter carrying a picture of Sammy. |
It is barbaric that
someone in a car can kill someone on the street and not be charged with a
crime. Yet it happens week after week in
New York. And politicians do little to nothing. This has to change. The rules of the street
have to change.
Listening to the testimonies, I had to leave. My whole body was starting to tremble, the cold filling it.
So I rode back through Bushwick towards home.
A press release for the press
event noted.
Neighborhood Groups Hold
Candlelight Vigil for Pedestrian Safety
A Year After Ella
Bandes’ Death, a Tribute to New Yorkers Killed in Crashes
Today at 4:30 PM,
neighborhood street safety groups will mark the
one-year anniversary
since 23-year-old Ella Bandes was killed by an
MTA bus. The vigil will
also pay tribute to the approximately 286 New
Yorkers killed in
traffic crashes in 2013 and the 17 already been
killed in 2014. The
vigil will be held at the intersection of Wycoff,
Palmetto and Myrtle
Avenues (outside the Myrtle-Wyckoff subway station
on the L line).
Ella Bandes' family has
been working for a year to have the
intersection where Ella
was killed redesigned to prevent future
fatalities, yet nothing
has been done. On December 30, 2013, the DOT
sent a letter to the
City Council promising changes to the
intersection that were
supposed to be completed this past spring. No
changes have been made,
and six more crashes have occurred at the same
location, injuring
pedestrians.
A “memorial wall” will
be unveiled at the vigil with the names of the
victims of traffic
fatalities in 2013, and in 2014 to date. A brief
interfaith service will
be led by Christian, Buddhist and Jewish
religious leaders,
illustrating that victims of traffic violence and
their families come from
all walks of life across our diverse city and
are united in their
grief and a desire to prevent others for suffering
as they have.
Speakers will include
Ella Bandes’ family and friends, as well as the
families of Sammy Cohen
Eckstein and Allison Hope Liao, who were
killed two days apart in
October. Several elected officials also will
attend, including State
Senator Michael Gianaris, Assemblywoman Nily
Rozic, Assemblywoman
Maritza Davila as well as Council Members Ydanis
Rodriquez, Elizabeth
Crowley, Mark Weprin, and Antonio Reynoso.
“Ella was my daughter,
my best friend, my sister, my inspiration, my
partner at the ballet
and at art shows, my cooking companion, my
teacher of all of her
discoveries, my movie critic, my political
conversant, my pop
culture and fashion consultant, my curly hair
coach,” said Judy
Kottick of Ella Bandes. “She was my connection to
the larger world and its
injustices. She had a pure spirit and sense
of joy that filled me
with light. I miss her, and the world is a
darker place without her
in it. Her death was avoidable as the
intersection has long
been known to be dangerous, and nothing was done
about it.”
Gary Eckstein said,
“Three months ago, our beautiful son Sammy was run
over and killed in the
intersection in front of our home. Sammy’s
death has rocked the
very foundation of who we are and forever changed
our lives. It is a
struggle just to keep going. We cry every day for
Sammy – we miss him so
much. We will be attending the vigil in the
hopes that together, we
can prevent others’ lives from being
needlessly cut short and
other families from suffering as we have
suffered.”
Speaking of her daughter
Allison Liao, Amy Tam-Liao said, “Ally was
full of life and such a
joyful presence in our close-knit family. She
was crossing the
intersection with the light holding her grandmother’s
hand when a driver
recklessly made a left hand turn without yielding
to the pedestrians in
the intersection. The driver has walked
away
with no punishment, but
our family is not able to walk away intact
like he is.”
On Wednesday, January
15, 2014, Mayor de Blasio held a press
conference to kick-off
the new administration’s Vision Zero program,
an ambitious agenda to
dramatically reduce the number of New Yorkers –
especially pedestrians –
injured and killed in traffic.
Mayor de Blasio has
called for a bold, comprehensive approach that
combines the three “E’s”
– engineering, enforcement, and education –
to reduce dangerous and
illegal behavior on our streets including
speeding, distracted
driving, and failure to yield to pedestrians. The
goal: reduce serious
injuries and fatalities on our streets to zero.
This holistic approach
has been implemented around the world and
ensures we address every
factor that makes streets dangerous, from
behavior to road design.
Specifically, Mayor de
Blasio has pledged to:
· Improve at least 50 dangerous corridors
and intersections
every year to discourage
dangerous driving
· Embrace a new expansion of 20 mph zones
across New York City
neighborhoods,
quadrupling the current number in four years
· Prioritize NYPD traffic enforcement
against the most
dangerous behavior,
especially speeding and failing to yield to
pedestrians
· Demand home rule on traffic cameras so
New York City can
deploy red light and
speed enforcement cameras based on safety, not
politics
We are grateful for the
Mayor’s commitment to traffic safety. But in
the weekend following
his Vision Zero announcement, four more
pedestrians were killed,
highlighting the urgency of the problem. In
New York City, one
person is killed in a car crash every 30 hours.
Every 10 seconds, a New
Yorker suffers a traffic- related injury. From
2001 to 2010, more New
Yorkers were killed in traffic than murdered by
guns.
In the vast majority of
traffic deaths, the drivers are at fault and
speed is a factor.
Slower speed allows drivers more time to react to
avoid crashes, and when
crashes do occur, injuries are substantially
reduced. When hit at 20
miles per hour, a pedestrian has a 95% chance
of surviving, at 40
miles per hour the survival rate is less than 30%.
Lowering the speed limit
will not be sufficient without enforcement.
Speed cameras are a
proven, cost-effective, life-saving enforcement
tool. In Washington,
D.C., speed cameras have contributed to a 76%
reduction in traffic
fatalities. Law enforcement agencies in more than
75 countries around the
world have used speed cameras for upwards of
30 years, with similarly
impressive results.
“In response to Sammy’s
death, the Department of Transportation
lowered the speed limit
to 25mph on our street. However, cars
still
speed,” said Amy Cohen.
“Without enforcement, the change will not
prevent future deaths.
While we would certainly support a police
presence to maintain the
speed limit, it is unfortunately not viable
to cover every
intersection in NYC and protect New Yorkers this way.
In our precinct, no
traffic tickets were issued the month before Sammy
was killed. The Police Inspector from our local precinct
indicated he
does not have the staff
to monitor speeding. Speed cameras will
save
lives,” Cohen said.
“We are coming out in
large numbers on Sunday to show Mayor DeBlasio
that we support him, and
that we will be there in big numbers to back
him up at Community
Boards, at Town Halls, at press conferences, and
other places where he
will need support to implement Vision Zero,”
said Hilda Cohen of Make
Brooklyn Safer. “We will go to Albany if that
is needed. We will be
there in large numbers and we will be vocal.”
"As we have seen,
Queens is the ground zero for Vision Zero," said
Assemblywoman Nily Rozic
(D, WF-Flushing). "While the City is a great
place for walking and
biking, the deaths of Allison Liao and Ella
Bandes serve as a tragic
reminder that careless and dangerous driving
puts everyone at risk--a
shocking truth that we need to address
immediately. I look
forward to working with Mayor de Blasio, my
colleagues, and
pedestrian safety advocates to make city streets safer
for New Yorkers of all
ages."
“In 2014, there have
already been 17 deaths as a result of traffic
crashes,” said Assemblyman
Mike Miller of the 38th District. “This
number reflects a new
generation of distracted drivers and
pedestrians. With the
advancement of modern technology, drivers and
pedestrians are
constantly tempted with distractions such as texting
on a cell phone while
driving or looking down at their phone or iPod
while standing on a
street corner. All of these actions
increase the
risk to both drivers and
pedestrians. I want to thank Make Queens
Safer for all of their
work and I look forward to working with them to
educate both drivers and
pedestrians in order to make our communities
safer places.”
“In 2014 alone, three
tragedies in my district emphasized for me the
overwhelming need to
change traffic laws and prevent traffic
fatalities in New York
City,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell.
“Already this year,
there have been too many deaths due to traffic
accidents, including the
death of a child. That horrific fact is why I
introduced A8478, which
changes the New York City administrative code
to set the city’s official
speed limit at 20 miles per hour except
where the City Council
determines a different speed limit is
appropriate. Studies
have shown that pedestrians hit at speeds of 20
and lower have a
dramatically higher chance of surviving an accident
than those hit at speeds
of 30 and above. I hope my bill will change
the devastating rate of
traffic deaths in the city, and contribute to
Mayor de Blasio’s
‘Vision Zero’ plan to prevent unsafe driving and end
traffic
fatalities."
“Every deadly car crash in
our city is a tragedy, and it is incumbent
upon all of us to do
everything we can to reduce fatalities to zero,”
said State Senator
Michael Gianaris. “I admire Ella’s parents for
working to make our
streets safer after sustaining such a
heartbreaking loss.
Parents like them and the groups that are here
today inspire all of us
in public service to work towards the goals of
Vision Zero and to
create a New York City in which pedestrians don’t
have to put their lives
on the line every time they cross a street.”
“Queens can no longer be
known as the borough of death,” said Council
Member Jimmy Van Bramer.
“I have met with families who have lost their
children to reckless
driving in my district. I do not accept that
their children’s death
could not have been prevented. Even one death
is one death too many.
It is time to aggressively re-design our
streets, lower the speed
limit, and enforce our laws. A safer city is
possible and I will do
everything in my power to fight to achieve
Vision Zero.”
“Our city cannot afford
another fatality or life-threatening injury
due to negligent
driving,” said Council Member Mark Weprin (D-Oakland
Gardens). “I am
committed to the strengthening of traffic laws to
deter motor-related
accidents and secure pedestrian safety.”
“As a major Level 1
Trauma Center in the borough of Queens, Elmhurst
Hospital Center sees a
significant number of pedestrian injuries,”
said Stuart Kessler, MD,
Chairman of the Emergency Department,
Elmhurst Hospital
Center. “Sadly, the number of pedestrian injuries
has not been falling and
may in fact be rising. For this reason, we
applaud Mayor DeBlasio's
commitment to Vision Zero. Elmhurst Hospital
Center has devoted
substantial resources to our Trauma Service, which
will help us be an
active partner in the mission to reduce pedestrian
injuries to zero in
NYC.”
“Brain Injury happens
anytime, anyplace and to anyone,” said Judith I.
Avner, Esq., Executive
Director of the Brain Injury Association of New
York State. “Motor
vehicle crashes and traffic related incidents are
the second leading cause
of brain injury and leading cause of brain
injury deaths. Many of
these tragedies can be avoided. Every 18.5
seconds, another person
sustains a brain injury. Unlike a broken bone,
an injured brain is
never the same. This silent epidemic dramatically
impacts the lives of
those with the injury as well as their families,
friends, neighbors,
co-workers, classmates and community. Challenges
resulting from the
injury can include vision, hearing, concentration,
and mobility as well as
cognitive and behavioral changes. The Brain
Injury Association of
New York State is pleased to join with Vision
Zero to bring attention
to these avoidable injuries.”
“Queens is uniting
across its broad range of local communities to
overcome the scourge of
deaths and injuries due to traffic violence on
our streets,” said Laura
Newman of the group Make Queens Safer. “Our
strength is in the
compassion and commitment of our neighbors, the
local folk, the teachers
and parents, the youth, and the elders, who
will not accept these
tragedies as a normal part of life. We embrace
Vision Zero as way of
community life in which preventable traffic
related deaths will be a
horror of the past.”
“Gracias amigo porfavor
apoyenle mucho a mi madre yo no puedo hacer
nada estoy muy lejos
solo pido a dios que algun momento se haga
justicia con la persona
que nos arrevato de nuestros corazones yo ame
mucho a mi ñañito fue mi
vida para mi haci este lejos fue mi vida
estoy totalmente
destruida. -- Mariluxi Bravo.
Vigil sponsors include:
Make Brooklyn Safer, Make Queens Safer, Right
of Way, Transportation
Alternatives, StreetsPAC, Bay Ridge Advocates
Keeping Everyone Safe
(BRAKES), Clinton Hell’s Kitchen Coalition for
Pedestrian Safety
(CHEKPEDS), Park Slope Street Safety Partnership,
Park Slope Parents,
Brooklyn Heights Association, International
Buddhist Progressive
Society (IBPS), Elmhurst Hospital Center, Brain
Injury Association of
New York State, Congresswoman Grace Meng, and
Councilmember Antonio
Reynoso.
That was what Amy Cohen,
the mother of Sammy, had to say at the Candlelight Vigil for Pedestrian Safety
held in Queens today. It is a simple
idea. Get Albany out of New York
transportation policy. Put speed cameras
on every street in New York. Charge those speeding with $500.00 tickets, put
points on their licenses, hiking up the price on insurance, and drivers will
slow down. Its that simple.
I always cry when I hear
Cohen speak, her family standing in full support. The simplicity of her prophetic voice should
be a wakeup call for all. Unless we have
a paradigm shift, casualties are going to continue to rise from the 17
pedestrians deaths we’ve already had this year. In the weeks and months since her son’s death,
her family have connected with others to turn their grief into action.
This weekend, we celebrated
our first child’s birthday full of life, of youthful exuberance of kids with
their lives ahead of them.
Their experience pulsed through
the weekend of birthday parties and bike rides through the snow covered, exquisite,
brutal New York city Streets on the way to the rally in Bushwick.
All these lives matter,
Keegan explained starting the rally.
Surrounded by street
activists, Ella Bandes’ mother Judy stood to remind the world that nothing much
has changed in the year since her child was killed in the streets at the corner
of Myrtle and Palamento, her life reduced to feeling like a bystander to the living.
Grief is the unwelcome guest
who now accompanies us through our days, Cohen explained.
Silence filled the busy
street, the sun starting to set on another day.
It is barbaric that
someone in a car can kill someone on the street and not be charged with a
crime. Yet it happens week after week in
New York. And politicians do little to nothing. This has to change. The rules of the street
have to change.
A press release for the press
event noted.
Neighborhood Groups Hold
Candlelight Vigil for Pedestrian Safety
A Year After Ella
Bandes’ Death, a Tribute to New Yorkers Killed in Crashes
Today at 4:30 PM,
neighborhood street safety groups will mark the
one-year anniversary
since 23-year-old Ella Bandes was killed by an
MTA bus. The vigil will
also pay tribute to the approximately 286 New
Yorkers killed in
traffic crashes in 2013 and the 17 already been
killed in 2014. The
vigil will be held at the intersection of Wycoff,
Palmetto and Myrtle
Avenues (outside the Myrtle-Wyckoff subway station
on the L line).
Ella Bandes' family has
been working for a year to have the
intersection where Ella
was killed redesigned to prevent future
fatalities, yet nothing
has been done. On December 30, 2013, the DOT
sent a letter to the
City Council promising changes to the
intersection that were
supposed to be completed this past spring. No
changes have been made,
and six more crashes have occurred at the same
location, injuring
pedestrians.
A “memorial wall” will
be unveiled at the vigil with the names of the
victims of traffic
fatalities in 2013, and in 2014 to date. A brief
interfaith service will
be led by Christian, Buddhist and Jewish
religious leaders,
illustrating that victims of traffic violence and
their families come from
all walks of life across our diverse city and
are united in their
grief and a desire to prevent others for suffering
as they have.
Speakers will include
Ella Bandes’ family and friends, as well as the
families of Sammy Cohen
Eckstein and Allison Hope Liao, who were
killed two days apart in
October. Several elected officials also will
attend, including State
Senator Michael Gianaris, Assemblywoman Nily
Rozic, Assemblywoman
Maritza Davila as well as Council Members Ydanis
Rodriquez, Elizabeth
Crowley, Mark Weprin, and Antonio Reynoso.
“Ella was my daughter,
my best friend, my sister, my inspiration, my
partner at the ballet
and at art shows, my cooking companion, my
teacher of all of her
discoveries, my movie critic, my political
conversant, my pop
culture and fashion consultant, my curly hair
coach,” said Judy
Kottick of Ella Bandes. “She was my connection to
the larger world and its
injustices. She had a pure spirit and sense
of joy that filled me
with light. I miss her, and the world is a
darker place without her
in it. Her death was avoidable as the
intersection has long
been known to be dangerous, and nothing was done
about it.”
Gary Eckstein said,
“Three months ago, our beautiful son Sammy was run
over and killed in the
intersection in front of our home. Sammy’s
death has rocked the
very foundation of who we are and forever changed
our lives. It is a
struggle just to keep going. We cry every day for
Sammy – we miss him so
much. We will be attending the vigil in the
hopes that together, we
can prevent others’ lives from being
needlessly cut short and
other families from suffering as we have
suffered.”
Speaking of her daughter
Allison Liao, Amy Tam-Liao said, “Ally was
full of life and such a
joyful presence in our close-knit family. She
was crossing the
intersection with the light holding her grandmother’s
hand when a driver
recklessly made a left hand turn without yielding
to the pedestrians in
the intersection. The driver has walked
away
with no punishment, but
our family is not able to walk away intact
like he is.”
On Wednesday, January
15, 2014, Mayor de Blasio held a press
conference to kick-off
the new administration’s Vision Zero program,
an ambitious agenda to
dramatically reduce the number of New Yorkers –
especially pedestrians –
injured and killed in traffic.
Mayor de Blasio has
called for a bold, comprehensive approach that
combines the three “E’s”
– engineering, enforcement, and education –
to reduce dangerous and
illegal behavior on our streets including
speeding, distracted
driving, and failure to yield to pedestrians. The
goal: reduce serious
injuries and fatalities on our streets to zero.
This holistic approach
has been implemented around the world and
ensures we address every
factor that makes streets dangerous, from
behavior to road design.
Specifically, Mayor de
Blasio has pledged to:
· Improve at least 50 dangerous corridors
and intersections
every year to discourage
dangerous driving
· Embrace a new expansion of 20 mph zones
across New York City
neighborhoods,
quadrupling the current number in four years
· Prioritize NYPD traffic enforcement
against the most
dangerous behavior,
especially speeding and failing to yield to
pedestrians
· Demand home rule on traffic cameras so
New York City can
deploy red light and
speed enforcement cameras based on safety, not
politics
We are grateful for the
Mayor’s commitment to traffic safety. But in
the weekend following
his Vision Zero announcement, four more
pedestrians were killed,
highlighting the urgency of the problem. In
New York City, one
person is killed in a car crash every 30 hours.
Every 10 seconds, a New
Yorker suffers a traffic- related injury. From
2001 to 2010, more New
Yorkers were killed in traffic than murdered by
guns.
In the vast majority of
traffic deaths, the drivers are at fault and
speed is a factor.
Slower speed allows drivers more time to react to
avoid crashes, and when
crashes do occur, injuries are substantially
reduced. When hit at 20
miles per hour, a pedestrian has a 95% chance
of surviving, at 40
miles per hour the survival rate is less than 30%.
Lowering the speed limit
will not be sufficient without enforcement.
Speed cameras are a
proven, cost-effective, life-saving enforcement
tool. In Washington,
D.C., speed cameras have contributed to a 76%
reduction in traffic
fatalities. Law enforcement agencies in more than
75 countries around the
world have used speed cameras for upwards of
30 years, with similarly
impressive results.
“In response to Sammy’s
death, the Department of Transportation
lowered the speed limit
to 25mph on our street. However, cars
still
speed,” said Amy Cohen.
“Without enforcement, the change will not
prevent future deaths.
While we would certainly support a police
presence to maintain the
speed limit, it is unfortunately not viable
to cover every
intersection in NYC and protect New Yorkers this way.
In our precinct, no
traffic tickets were issued the month before Sammy
was killed. The Police Inspector from our local precinct
indicated he
does not have the staff
to monitor speeding. Speed cameras will
save
lives,” Cohen said.
“We are coming out in
large numbers on Sunday to show Mayor DeBlasio
that we support him, and
that we will be there in big numbers to back
him up at Community
Boards, at Town Halls, at press conferences, and
other places where he
will need support to implement Vision Zero,”
said Hilda Cohen of Make
Brooklyn Safer. “We will go to Albany if that
is needed. We will be
there in large numbers and we will be vocal.”
"As we have seen,
Queens is the ground zero for Vision Zero," said
Assemblywoman Nily Rozic
(D, WF-Flushing). "While the City is a great
place for walking and
biking, the deaths of Allison Liao and Ella
Bandes serve as a tragic
reminder that careless and dangerous driving
puts everyone at risk--a
shocking truth that we need to address
immediately. I look
forward to working with Mayor de Blasio, my
colleagues, and
pedestrian safety advocates to make city streets safer
for New Yorkers of all
ages."
“In 2014, there have
already been 17 deaths as a result of traffic
crashes,” said Assemblyman
Mike Miller of the 38th District. “This
number reflects a new
generation of distracted drivers and
pedestrians. With the
advancement of modern technology, drivers and
pedestrians are
constantly tempted with distractions such as texting
on a cell phone while
driving or looking down at their phone or iPod
while standing on a
street corner. All of these actions
increase the
risk to both drivers and
pedestrians. I want to thank Make Queens
Safer for all of their
work and I look forward to working with them to
educate both drivers and
pedestrians in order to make our communities
safer places.”
“In 2014 alone, three
tragedies in my district emphasized for me the
overwhelming need to
change traffic laws and prevent traffic
fatalities in New York
City,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell.
“Already this year,
there have been too many deaths due to traffic
accidents, including the
death of a child. That horrific fact is why I
introduced A8478, which
changes the New York City administrative code
to set the city’s official
speed limit at 20 miles per hour except
where the City Council
determines a different speed limit is
appropriate. Studies
have shown that pedestrians hit at speeds of 20
and lower have a
dramatically higher chance of surviving an accident
than those hit at speeds
of 30 and above. I hope my bill will change
the devastating rate of
traffic deaths in the city, and contribute to
Mayor de Blasio’s
‘Vision Zero’ plan to prevent unsafe driving and end
traffic
fatalities."
“Every deadly car crash in
our city is a tragedy, and it is incumbent
upon all of us to do
everything we can to reduce fatalities to zero,”
said State Senator
Michael Gianaris. “I admire Ella’s parents for
working to make our
streets safer after sustaining such a
heartbreaking loss.
Parents like them and the groups that are here
today inspire all of us
in public service to work towards the goals of
Vision Zero and to
create a New York City in which pedestrians don’t
have to put their lives
on the line every time they cross a street.”
“Queens can no longer be
known as the borough of death,” said Council
Member Jimmy Van Bramer.
“I have met with families who have lost their
children to reckless
driving in my district. I do not accept that
their children’s death
could not have been prevented. Even one death
is one death too many.
It is time to aggressively re-design our
streets, lower the speed
limit, and enforce our laws. A safer city is
possible and I will do
everything in my power to fight to achieve
Vision Zero.”
“Our city cannot afford
another fatality or life-threatening injury
due to negligent
driving,” said Council Member Mark Weprin (D-Oakland
Gardens). “I am
committed to the strengthening of traffic laws to
deter motor-related
accidents and secure pedestrian safety.”
“As a major Level 1
Trauma Center in the borough of Queens, Elmhurst
Hospital Center sees a
significant number of pedestrian injuries,”
said Stuart Kessler, MD,
Chairman of the Emergency Department,
Elmhurst Hospital
Center. “Sadly, the number of pedestrian injuries
has not been falling and
may in fact be rising. For this reason, we
applaud Mayor DeBlasio's
commitment to Vision Zero. Elmhurst Hospital
Center has devoted
substantial resources to our Trauma Service, which
will help us be an
active partner in the mission to reduce pedestrian
injuries to zero in
NYC.”
“Brain Injury happens
anytime, anyplace and to anyone,” said Judith I.
Avner, Esq., Executive
Director of the Brain Injury Association of New
York State. “Motor
vehicle crashes and traffic related incidents are
the second leading cause
of brain injury and leading cause of brain
injury deaths. Many of
these tragedies can be avoided. Every 18.5
seconds, another person
sustains a brain injury. Unlike a broken bone,
an injured brain is
never the same. This silent epidemic dramatically
impacts the lives of
those with the injury as well as their families,
friends, neighbors,
co-workers, classmates and community. Challenges
resulting from the
injury can include vision, hearing, concentration,
and mobility as well as
cognitive and behavioral changes. The Brain
Injury Association of
New York State is pleased to join with Vision
Zero to bring attention
to these avoidable injuries.”
“Queens is uniting
across its broad range of local communities to
overcome the scourge of
deaths and injuries due to traffic violence on
our streets,” said Laura
Newman of the group Make Queens Safer. “Our
strength is in the
compassion and commitment of our neighbors, the
local folk, the teachers
and parents, the youth, and the elders, who
will not accept these
tragedies as a normal part of life. We embrace
Vision Zero as way of
community life in which preventable traffic
related deaths will be a
horror of the past.”
“Gracias amigo porfavor
apoyenle mucho a mi madre yo no puedo hacer
nada estoy muy lejos
solo pido a dios que algun momento se haga
justicia con la persona
que nos arrevato de nuestros corazones yo ame
mucho a mi ñañito fue mi
vida para mi haci este lejos fue mi vida
estoy totalmente
destruida. -- Mariluxi Bravo.
Vigil sponsors include:
Make Brooklyn Safer, Make Queens Safer, Right
of Way, Transportation
Alternatives, StreetsPAC, Bay Ridge Advocates
Keeping Everyone Safe
(BRAKES), Clinton Hell’s Kitchen Coalition for
Pedestrian Safety
(CHEKPEDS), Park Slope Street Safety Partnership,
Park Slope Parents,
Brooklyn Heights Association, International
Buddhist Progressive
Society (IBPS), Elmhurst Hospital Center, Brain
Injury Association of
New York State, Congresswoman Grace Meng, and
Councilmember Antonio
Reynoso.
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