Mayor Eric Adams speaks on the Billie Vacation Theatre in Restoration Plaza on July 28, 2022 within the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn borough in New York Metropolis.
Picture by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Public security has at all times been the North Star of this administration. Conserving our metropolis protected is not only about crime stats — it is usually about how individuals are feeling. And New Yorkers have sturdy emotions about unlawful mopeds and scooters, particularly when they’re driving the fallacious means down streets, on sidewalks, or in the dead of night with none lights, and when they’re modified to extend noise and disturb neighborhoods.
The rise of the moped period has terrorized a lot of our pedestrians. Seniors and older adults are afraid of being run down proper on their very own block. Mother and father are afraid their kids could be injured by somebody popping a wheelie. And on a regular basis residents dread that sound as they hear it approaching.
However generally using these unlawful autos is greater than a hazard or a nuisance, generally it’s criminals. Criminals typically use unlawful mopeds and ghost autos to journey round and snatch cell telephones, jewellery, and wallets from New Yorkers, or worse, to flee after committing a taking pictures, theft, or one other violent crime.
Our administration is not going to tolerate crime or riders who assume the principles don’t apply to them; that’s why we have now been taking motion on this difficulty since day one. And as summer time begins and extra of those autos are out, we have now ramped up enforcement everywhere in the metropolis, resulting in us to confiscate and impound greater than 100,000 of those autos since 2022. That’s over 100,000 ghost autos with cast, unlawful, or no license plates, together with over 62,300 unlawful two-wheeled autos. These autos — which are sometimes unregistered, uninsured, or stolen — are sometimes utilized in crimes or implicated in accidents. Additionally they deprive law-abiding taxpayers of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in unpaid tolls and costs.
We now have been clear: We aren’t going to let individuals stay in concern, and we’re not going to look the opposite means. Final week, we despatched one other 200 of those unlawful autos to their remaining vacation spot: the scrap heap. We crushed these autos, as a substitute of reselling them, to allow them to by no means be utilized in a criminal offense or to terrorize harmless New Yorkers once more. Whether or not we’re getting unlawful weapons or unlawful ghost vehicles off our streets, in the case of public security, we are actually crushing it.
The destruction of those unlawful autos sends an essential message to everybody who drives on the streets of our metropolis: Nobody is above the legislation. In the event you drive an unlawful car in New York, you’ll face the implications. And so will your journey.
And the numbers present that our effort to rid our metropolis of those autos helps us ship a safer metropolis for residents of the 5 boroughs. This 12 months has seen a virtually 86 % lower in grand larceny patterns, in addition to a 68 % lower in theft patterns involving mopeds. Extra broadly, there was a 57 % lower in all index crimes reported involving mopeds year-to-date. That is all along with our efforts which have pushed down general crime throughout our metropolis; with the persevering with drop in main crimes we’ve seen in April, Might, and to date this month, we’re on monitor to have our sixth straight quarter of declining crime.
I wish to thank NYPD Commissioner Tisch, Sanitation Commissioner Lojan, and the women and men at each New York’s Most interesting and New York’s Strongest for serving to us get these unlawful autos off our streets, as soon as and for all. Due to their efforts, New York Metropolis stays the most secure massive metropolis in America and the very best place to lift a household. However it is usually a spot the place you possibly can stay figuring out your metropolis is looking for you — day and night time, in faculties and in subways, on the streets and on the sidewalks.
