NY mayor orders increased truck enforcement — with $7000 citations — starting Monday
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered city police to start handing out heavy truck violation citations as high as $7000 starting next week.
On Friday, de Blasio signed an executive order requiring the New York Police Department (NYPD) to increase truck enforcement on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
BREAKING: @NYCMayor signs an executive order to increase enforcement against overweight trucks on the BQE. pic.twitter.com/c9wAJWFI6T
— NYC Mayor’s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) January 31, 2020
Per the executive order, starting on Monday, February 3, the NYPD will have the authority to issue fines of up to $7000 to any trucker weighing more than 80,000 pounds on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE).
The news of the truck crackdown comes just one day after a panel released a report on the BQE suggesting that overweight trucks could cause enough infrastructure damage to make the roadway unsafe in just a few years:
This data is alarming; it suggests that the presence of many overweight trucks – a function of limited monitoring and enforcement – coupled with deterioration of the cantilever could cause sections of the road to become unsafe and unable to carry existing levels of traffic within five years.
De Blasio admitted that New York needs trucks to supply goods to the city, but said that they aren’t welcome on his city’s streets. “So much of what we depend on is by truck. We’re going to be dependent on trucks for so much of what we need for a long, long time. And we don’t want them on our city streets.”
The BQE carries about 150,000 vehicles each day, including around 15,000 trucks.
The news of the enforcement crackdown comes the same week that New York governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a dramatic increase fines for overweight and overheight violations for truck drivers in hopes of cutting down on bridge strikes.