Families for Safe Streets fights to defend Right of Way Law

Families for Safe Streets, a group of New Yorkers who have come together after losing loved ones or being injured in traffic crashes, is launching a new ad campaign calling on the New York City Council to defend the Right of Way Law, and to make no driver above the law.

“The City Council has demonstrated great leadership over the past year with their support of Vision Zero but now, a special interest group is threatening to erase all the progress the city has made in the effort to end traffic fatalities and serious injuries,” explained Amy Tam-Liao, a founding member of Families for Safe Streets whose three-year-old daughter Allison Liao was killed by a driver who failed to yield as she walked hand-in-hand with her grandmother in a Queens crosswalk in 2013.

Transport unions are hoping to make MTA bus drivers exempt from the Vision Zero law, while victims’ families argue that any driver who kills or injures a person in a crosswalk with the right of way must be held accountable.

“Even though we’re a small group without the budget to hire a big PR firm, we decided to make our own ads to send the message that the Right of Way Law protects New York’s walking families,” Tam-Liao said.

The ads can be seen online at www.DefendRoW.org.