28 THE QUEENS COURIER • NOVEMBER 12, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com editorial THE QUEENS PUBLISHER & EDITOR CO-PUBLISHER ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF VP, EVENTS, WEB & SOCIAL MEDIA ART DIRECTOR ASSISTANT TO PUBLISHER ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR ARTISTS STAFF REPORTERS CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS WEB EDITOR EVENTS MANAGER CLASSIFIED MANAGER CONTROLLER PRESIDENT & CEO VICE PRESIDENT VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS BOB BRENNAN ROBERT POZARYCKI AMY AMATO-SANCHEZ NIRMAL SINGH ALAN SELTZER STEPHEN REINA RON TORINA, JENNIFER DECIO, CHERYL GALLAGHER ANGY ALTAMIRANO, KATRINA MEDOFF, ANTHONY GIUDICE ANGELA MATUA, ALINA SURIEL CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI ANGY ALTAMIRANO DEMETRA PLAGAKIS CELESTE ALAMIN MARIA VALENCIA VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 www.queenscourier.com editorial e-mail: editorial@queenscourier.com for advertising e-mail: ads@queenscourier.com Entire Contents Copyright 2015 by The Queens Courier All letters sent to THE QUEENS COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of THE QUEENS COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to THE QUEENS COURIER within fi ve days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Schneps Communications assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold THE QUEENS COURIER and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. SNAPS QUEENS Bayside’s Oakland Lake. Photo by Melissa McFadden Send us your photos of Queens and you could see them online or in our paper! Submit them to us via our Instagram @queenscourier, Facebook page, tweeting @queenscourier or by emailing editorial@queenscourier.com (subject: Queens Snaps). Focus Vision Zero on pedestrians To err may be indeed human, but to err on a New York City street may mean certain death. In the last week, two deadly accidents involving pedestrians occurred on Queens streets. In Flushing, an elderly woman was gruesomely struck and run over by a charter bus on the night of Nov. 5. Two nights later, a man was struck and killed by a car as he attempted to cross South Conduit Avenue in South Ozone Park. These were just two of 11 vehicular accidents that resulted in injury or death across the fi ve boroughs over the last week, prompting the local tabloids to question whether the Vision Zero initiative — the street safety campaign that Mayor Bill de Blasio has championed since taking offi ce — really works. According to a published report, the city has experienced 104 pedestrian deaths this year as of last week, down about eight from the same time in 2014. Make Queens Safer, a transportation safety group, had even better news, noting that accidents resulting in pedestrian injury or death were down 15 percent boroughwide in September 2015 as opposed to the 2013 calendar year. There is one troubling commonality in the two most recent deadly accidents on Queens streets: the pedestrians were breaking the law. In Flushing, according to police, the woman was jaywalking in the middle of the block when the bus — which had a green light in its favor — struck her. Police also pointed out that the pedestrian fatally hit in South Ozone Park was crossing South Conduit Avenue against the light. Under Vision Zero, the city made numerous changes designed to better control vehicular traffi c, from reducing the default speed limit to installing cameras designed to catch speeders. But if this program is to be a success, the city needs to do more to educate pedestrians about crossing the street safely and — when necessary — issue summonses to jaywalkers. Drivers can only control their own vehicles; they cannot control the person errantly crossing in front of them. All the driver can do is slam the brakes, swerve and hope for the best. That’s not something that makes our streets safer. It’s time to confront voter apathy The 2016 election — the election that everyone’s been talking about for the last three years — is fi nally less than a year away. It is indeed important, but its importance goes beyond the presidential race. Turnout in this election — as it is with every race, big or small — will be critical toward its outcome a year from now. It will almost certainly be larger than the anemic turnout reported at polls citywide in the most recent election last week, but by how much? Looking at the 23rd City Council District race in northeast Queens was particularly troubling. In a district with more than 152,000 inhabitants, just under 11,000 of them showed up at the polls on Nov. 3. So about 7 percent of the district’s population took advantage of the opportunity to choose someone to represent them in the City Council and fi ll a seat that had been vacant for fi ve months. Voter participation has been down in recent years, and it’s time for the city and state to seriously examine why people aren’t voting and take measures to get people to vote more regularly in elections. Whether it’s one or a combination of early voting, online voting, easing registration requirements or improving the overall quality of candidates, something must be done to reduce voter apathy, which imperils our democracy greater than any other possible threat. identify thisPLACE Photo by Waiyin Tung of Bayside High School
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