The alleged party of law and order now allegedly supports law and order for drivers.
A Republican Assembly Member who once defended reckless driving has now signed onto a bill that would install speed-limiting technology inside the cars of the most frequent speeders, prompted by the lenient sentencing this week of a recidivist speeder who killed a mother and two of her children.
On Friday, Assembly Member Michael Novakhov (R-Sheepshead Bay) endorsed the so-called “Stop Super Speeders” bill, slamming Judge Danny Chun for sentencing Miriam Yarimi to just three to nine years in prison for killing Natasha Saada and two daughters on a dangerous stretch of Ocean Parkway.
“This latest deal for Miriam Yarimi ... is outrageous. Since this tragedy occurred, I’ve heard from heartbroken neighbors and supporters, and the message is the same: this cannot happen again,” Novakhov said in a statement.
According to records, Yarimi was driving her Audi at 68 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone when she struck the family — and had received 19 red-light and speed-camera summonses in the 12 months before the March 29 crash. But if Albany had previously passed the Stop Super Speeders bill, her car would have been required to have a speed governor installed inside it, keeping it always at the speed limit.
“I appreciate the amendments my colleagues made to ‘Stop Super Speeders Act,’ and I believe this legislation is an important step toward addressing the failures that allowed this tragedy to happen,” Novakhov said, referring to the amended bill, would require the speed limiters after the driver's 16th speed-camera ticket in a year. “We cannot allow recidivist, reckless individuals to remain on our roads endangering our families. And we must also do more to prevent tragedies like this in the first place.”
Novakhov made headlines when Streetsblog questioned him at the Saada family funeral, where he offered shocking statements about speeding drivers and the bill by his colleague Andrew Gounardes, which at the time would trigger the speed governor on any car with six tickets in a year. “Any driver can get much more than six," he said. "It's the regular constituents, just people like me and you are getting those tickets.”
He also said he opposed speed cameras, even though they only ticket drivers when they reach 11 miles per hour above the posted speed limit in a school zone.
Street safety advocates said the freshman legislator's support of the bill could open the door for his conservative peers to sign on, too.
“True political leadership puts people first and that is exactly what Assembly member Novakhov has done by supporting the Stop Super Speeders bill," said Amber Adler, an activist with Families For Safe Streets who lives in Novakhov's district. "His support of this vital safety bill will save lives and honor the memory of Natasha, Diana and Deborah Saada who were violently killed. ... This bipartisan support illuminates a widened path for this bill to move forward and pass through the chamber this upcoming session.”
