Cyclist and Pedestrian Safety Awareness Added to Driver’s License Requirements

By Yehudit Garmaise

While bicycles and scooters have exploded as modes of transportation for New Yorkers, driver education has not been providing the necessary information to keep everyone safe, said State Sen. Andrew Gounardes.   

Now that Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that promotes pedestrian and bicyclist safety into law, the NY Department of Motor Vehicles will expand the explanations as to how drivers should safely navigate around bikers and pedestrians in the Rules of the Road.

New Yorkers applying for drivers’ licenses now will be tested, not just on traffic safety as it applies to drivers, but to drivers’ interactions with pedestrians and cyclists, as well.

The increased testing requirements provide the antidote to insufficient statewide driver education, which had produced generations of motorists who had little awareness of the need for sharing the road with pedestrians and cyclists to ensure their safety.

“The instructions and the driving test haven’t been updated to reflect the reality that our roadways are shared spaces,” said Gounardes, who remembered the 2019 crash that tragically killed 3-year-old Emur Shavkator of Brooklyn, when a delivery truck driver passed a stop sign without first checking for pedestrians.

“My top priority as governor is to keep New Yorkers safe, and it is common sense to make pedestrian and bike safety education mandatory for drivers,” tweeted Gov. Hochul. “This law will help prevent crashes and save lives, and I thank my partners in the Assembly and Senate for passing this legislation to make our streets safer.”

Although driver inexperience and lack of proper education are large causes of injury-causing crashes in the state and city, according to Streetsblog, alcohol, aggressive driving/road rage, and falling asleep were other top causes of car crashes in 2021 in New York.