Speaker Menin and 34 Council Members Tell Carl Heastie To Pass Hochul’s ‘Stop Super Speeder’ Plan

A supermajority of City Council members, including Speaker Julie Menin, implored New York’s two most powerful state legislators to include Gov. Hochul’s “Stop Super Speeder” proposal in the state budget amid ongoing negotiations.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins is on board with Hochul’s proposal to allow the city to mandate speed limiter tech on the cars of the most notorious recidivist speeders, making Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie the primary holdout.

In a letter to Heastie and Stewart-Cousins on Friday, the group of 34 Democrats and one Republican called on the Legislature to pass the plan in their forthcoming budget, as Hochul has proposed.

The state budget is more than a month late, but Gov. Hochul told reporters on Friday that it may be done as soon as next week.

Heastie (D-Bronx) has opposed previous versions of the legislation on the shaky grounds that it would impinge on motorists’ right to due process — a position he downplayed as “a concern” on Thursday.

“Having a concern doesn’t mean you don’t support things,” Heastie told reporters. “I don’t support people speeding, but, you know, we really haven’t talked about it too much.”

The Council supermajority joins Gov. Hochul, Mayor Mamdani and the borough presidents and district attorneys of Manhattan and Brooklyn in backing the legislation, which as Hochul has proposed it would allow the city to require so-called “intelligent speed assistance” be installed on vehicles with 16 or more speed-camera tickets, itself a watered-down proposal that would affect an estimated 15,000 drivers.

“ISA technology is a common-sense, life-saving approach for combatting reckless driver behavior and reducing traffic fatalities,” the Council said in its May 1 letter, which was organized by Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn).

It’s not clear how the program would be administered, but it’s designed to apply to incorrigible speeders such as Staten Island NYPD Officer James Giovansanti, the Staten Island cop who Streetsblog found to have received 547 camera-issued speed and red-light tickets since 2022 on his Dodge RAM 1500 truck.

Staten Island’s elected representatives have said little about Giovansanti or the “Stop Super Speeder” law — with the exception of Council Member Frank Morano, the sole Republican signatory to Menin and Restler’s letter.

“I support our police 100 percent,” Morano said after Streetsblog’s exposé was published. “But 500+ speeding violations is concerning no matter who you are.”

Heastie could not immediately be reached for comment.