NY'ers, get their plate #
 

this article deserves to be posted:

RECLAIM THE STREETS
Meet the MV-15--civilization's AK-47.

By Aaron Naparstek
naparstek@nypress.com

There's only one thing standing between New York City and total barbarism. It's not the cops, the courts or Carnegie Hall. The city's single greatest civilizing force is the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles form MV-15. The MV-15 allows you, the average, anonymous citizen, to access the driving records and personal information of any motorist with New York license plates.

Libertarians can say what they want about the slippery slope of privacy rights. We are already at the bottom of the slope when it comes to motor vehicle carnage. Reckless, careless or just plain idiot drivers are, by many measures, the single biggest threat that New Yorkers face on a daily basis, more dangerous than either street crime or terrorism. In 2004, there were 190,000 car crashes in New York City, a staggering 520 per day. In these crashes 287 motorists and 179 pedestrians were killed, and about 15,000 injured. And 2004 was a good year. Nationwide, about 45,000 Americans are killed in car wrecks annually, the equivalent of a couple of fully loaded jumbo jets going down each week.

If the subway or any other public transportation system failed this badly and this often, it would be shut down immediately. Yet motorists continue to cruise New York City's streets with almost total impunity. The NYPD rarely stops anyone for moving violations (unless they're on a bicycle). And if you kill someone with your car, as long as you're not drunk or driving with a suspended license, the cops will likely chalk it up as an "accident." The media will barely bother reporting it.

I can't even use the word "accident" anymore when I talk or write about motor vehicle deaths. Calling it an accident assumes, usually before the facts are in, that the wreck was no one's fault. Sure, lots of crashes truly are horrible accidents. But if you spilled milk dozens of times a day in somewhat predictable ways, would you continue to call it an accident every time? I've taken to calling them "crashes" or "incidents."

When I first came to New York after college, I remember sometimes thinking that it was kind of amazing that people weren't more often pushing each other in front of moving trains or lobbing bricks off of rooftops. The opportunities to wreak havoc are so abundant in New York. Yet, by and large, people don't. It can't only be fear of punishment or a narcoleptic, tv-induced consumer trance that prevents this fractious and diverse city from breaking down into total mayhem. A tacit social contract governs life in New York City. It is a testament to how far New York City has come in the last dozen years that, today, the most frequent and egregious violator of this social contract is the guy in the souped-up SUV, tearing down the street, leaning on his horn, trying to make the next traffic light no matter what the risk or cost to the people outside his vehicle.

We have pretty much come to assume that the motor vehicle's destructive dominance of public space is the natural order of things, just as New Yorkers a century ago assumed cholera epidemics, tenement fires and child labor were inevitable and unavoidable products of big-city life. It took decades of work by highly organized, politically powerful, progressive reformers to cure the city of those ills. It will take decades of work to address the damage caused by our near-religious devotion to automobility.

In the meantime, there is no reason why you have to let the guy in the SUV get away with it. MV-15 his ass. Take note of his license plate number. When you get home, Google "New York State DMV form MV-15." It'll cost you $12, and because you're dealing with Albany, you'll have to wait many weeks to get the guy's name, address, phone number and complete driving records. Once you have that information, get creative.

Was the guy's car alarm going off in front of your house all night? Give him a phone call at 3:30 a.m. every morning for a week and let him know that someone is trying to break into his vehicle. Was he blasting his horn needlessly, or driving dangerously in your neighborhood? Write him an anonymous letter and make sure he understands that you are watching and you know where he lives. Be polite and civil, don't say anything you'd be embarrassed to have come back to you, and don't do anything violent or illegal. But go ahead and use that MV-15. Let the motorhead know that just because he is hidden behind tinted windows, reclined in plush bucket seats and cocooned within 4500 pounds of metal, he is being held accountable. And there will be consequences

thats really good. thanks for that

amazing. do you mind if I cut and paste the paragraph with the stats in it? (with attribution, of course) I often wish I had such a concise statement when some jerk is slagging bikers online.

Damn, I wish I could remember the # of that guy who hit me with his sideview mirror last week after laying on the horn...I took the time to memorize it but later forgot (I decided it wasn't worth it to report it to the police since nothing would happen).

Good article. When I first saw the subject line, I immediately assumed that it was somehow related to the bill that Bronx City Councilmember Madeline Provenzano introduced not so long ago that would require licenses on bicycles in the city... Phew!

aaron naparstek ROCKS. he started honku.org a few years ago, it's great to see him directing his energies so well...thanks for posting this.

damn.. I had a bit of an incident yesterday, and I wished I'd noticed the guy's plate #. I'm in Toronto though, and I'm not sure if we have a similar system in any way.

Great article!!!

yes, i was just wondering if anyone knows of similar laws or forms for other states/provinces.

Yeah baby!

MV-15, eh?
When people ask "why put up with all the nonsense that New York dishes out?", I can reply that it's the little things that make it worthwhile...

I wonder if there's a volume discount available? Say, $80 for a dozen?

this needs to be implemented in California- these SUV driving cell phone talking baby feeding soccer moms are multiplying like crazy!

awesome

its a great article, but i am having a hard time figuring out what sort of 'consequences' will be inflicted (legally) with someone's phone number and address. Annoying phone messages isn't quite the same as the annoyance of having to ride with a bunch of blissed-out, cell phone talking, passenger-less suv's that can smash you like a bug. What are the consequences gonna be? I'm all for the seriousness of the problem of cars dominating the city, big time, dealing with such issues is what i do for a living, but im concerned that this mv-15 thing is just more bureacratic crapola that wont make a smidge of difference. consequences. how 'bout some way to document bad driver behavior and start taking away licenses? or have those tire-shredder things pop up at red lights, that'll slow people down. or just ban cars altogether, or at least charge for the inter-borough bridges and use the money for something worthwhile.

Agreed.

As much as I fanatasize about calling up the jerks who run me off the road, trying to make them understand how they took my life so carelessly in their hands....it's a waste of time and $12. These people aren't going to learn any lessons. They probably wouldn't "learn their lesson" if their license WAS taken away for driving like an ass. They'd just be that much more bitter and jaded. My opinion is that the people in question are driving their cars in this fashion because they are either reckless/not paying enough attention, or they're just pricks who don't consider the consequences (to the cyclist's they should be sharing the road with) of driving aggresively, or even worse, don't care about these consequences. Calling them up at home isn't going to help the matter. You'll just reinforce their negative impressions and make the rest of us (especially people like me who are on the road 10 hours a day or more) targets for their aggression.