Deadly Brooklyn crash renews calls for speed limiter legislation for repeat speeding offenders
A Brooklyn community is pushing for new legislation targeting speeding drivers just days after a horrific crash killed a mother and her two young daughters.
Natasha Saada, 34, and her daughters, 8-year-old Diana and 5-year-old Deborah, were killed as they walked on Ocean Parkway by Quentin Avenue in Midwood Saturday. Her 4-year-old son, Philip, remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Lawmakers and street safety advocates gathered at Brooklyn Borough Hall Monday afternoon to call for the passage of legislation that many say could have prevented the deadly weekend crash.
"A tragedy of immense proportions"
"We cannot allow Natasha, Diana and Deborah's death to be in vain," one speaker said.
"A tragedy of immense proportions. Indescribable," Joey Saban said. "This woman should not have been behind the wheel of that car and had this been a law that it's entirely possible that this wouldn't have happened."
The bill would require anyone with more than six speeding or red light camera tickets to have a speed limiter device placed onto their car. Lawmakers say the device prevents drivers from traveling more than five miles an hour over the local speed limit.
"This driver had 21 speeding tickets, including 15 in a school zone, in the last two years, so clearly would've met the threshold," State Sen. Andrew Gounardes said.
"These lives could've been saved"
The Department of Transportation says 500 of their own vehicles have the speed assistance technology implemented. Gounardes, who is proposing the bill, says it works.
"You hit them with their car at 25 mph, there was a 75% chance they walk away with a scratch. You hit somebody with your car at 40 miles an hour. There's an 80% chance that they die," Gounardes said.
Miriam Yarimi, the driver in Saturday's crash, faces a long list of charges, including three counts of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault and more. Yarimi, 32, was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital as she awaits arraignment.
"If a speed limiter had been installed here, she wouldn't have been able to drive that fast and, these lives could've been saved," Gounardes said.
"I will call it like it is. This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn't have been on the road. A mother and two young children ... killed, another child fighting for his life. A family and a neighborhood devastated in an instant," NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a press conference at the scene at the time of the crash. "The NYPD sends its condolences to the family of the victims. May their memories be a blessing."
Lawmakers say they hope to present the bill before the entire legislature by June.