New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is catching some heat after a local TV news crew says it caught his motorcade breaking several traffic laws on camera while he was in the passenger's seat.
"It went through this stop sign and this one. And there were various instances of speeding. ... Trouble is, if a cop was following the cars and handing out tickets, the driver could lose his license on points." (Via WCBS)
What makes this video somewhat troubling for the city's new mayor is that he made these comments in a news conference just one day before that video was shot.
DE BLASIO: "The likelihood of a fatal crash drops significantly for speeds below 30 miles per hour. So we get those speeds down, it would be the difference between losing a life and saving a life." (Via Fox News)
The mayor was talking about a new traffic plan that, among other things, would lower the city's speed limit. Businessweek notes the proposal would lower it from 30 to 25 miles per hour.
In a news conference Friday, de Blasio refused to answer questions about the incident. WNYW reports the mayor simply referred to comments the city's police commissioner made about the alleged law breaking.
WNBC notes the commissioner said he wasn't "overly concerned" about the video. After de Blasio made that point, he ended his news conference without taking questions.
Again, the mayor wasn't the one driving in the incident caught on video, but as an unnamed reporter told The New York Times said even during de Blasio's time as a "public advocate," he didn't exactly practice the safest driving.
The reporter said de Blasio had " ... an aggressive driving style, accelerating to make yellow lights and sometimes beeping the horn to urge slower cars ahead to pick up the pace."
New York's police commissioner said the motorcade was following security procedures when it allegedly blew through stop signs and went up to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit.
