To effectively prosecute and prevent vehicular crimes in New York City, we must increase public awareness of the high traffic fatality rates. When the city focused on driving down the homicide rate, it was successful. The District Attorney’s office must send the message that all vehicular fatalities will be vigorously investigated to determine potential criminal liability.
Essential to educating the public about vehicular crimes is changing the language in which we speak of such crimes. Many times we call these incidents “traffic accidents.” These incidents are traffic fatalities and will be investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted as such. My office will send this message to the public and the borough based investigative unit that comes to investigate vehicular crime scenes.
The DA’s office will compile data of the vehicular fatality cases it investigates every year and publish an annual report, including the cause. This will help prevent future vehicular fatalities by educating the public & the NYPD so that they can create programs to prevent future fatalities.
The DA’s office will include training programs on how to prosecute these complicated crimes. The office will also work closely with the family members of the deceased to ensure victims have a seat at the table.

The current DA's Office has taken great steps in making our streets safer, most significantly by creating a dedicated Vehicular Crimes Unit to help ADAs investigate and prosecute DWI cases. Curbing dangerous behavior before it becomes lethal by charging the most egregious speeders with reckless driving instead of simply writing a ticket is important.  There should also be laws providing greater penalties for repeat offenders.
Another issue is with the "Rule of Two," which presumes a driver must have committed two simultaneous traffic violations in order to be charged with criminally negligent homicide.  This is too narrow a standard for a prosecutor to employ when dealing with complex situations.  Traffic accidents include uniquely technical and circumstantial factors that must be considered entirely and on a case-by-case basis.  Using this “totality of the circumstances” standard, prosecutors can better determine criminal liability, and on whom it should fall.
It's crucial that the DA’s office obtain all evidence to ensure a proper investigation and prosecution of each case.  EDR's are present in most vehicles and can provide investigators with crash statistics that a traditional investigation may not.  There are still issues with this technology but I believe we must do everything in our power to get this data in the hands of investigators and prosecutors.  We have to take proper precautions to make certain that reckless drivers do not escape their criminal liability.

My legal philosophy stems from my political philosophy which is both progressive and liberal. The act of driving a vehicle in Manhattan can be fraught with pitfalls especially given the high traffic volumes and intense concentration of pedestrians at central locations and at peak times. The top priority of the DA must be to ensure public safety. There is no second chance on the road – when a car crashes and someone is killed – no apology, no claim that it was strictly an accident, will ever bring that loved one back. With this grim reality in mind, strong preventative measures must be taken by police and prosecutors with the ultimate goal of reducing incidents of dangerous driving with potentially tragic outcomes.
My plan for the future grants more attention to the area of vehicular safety in several ways. First, the DA’s office must become closer to the communities it services in order to fully understand their needs and concerns. This community-based prosecution concept is critical as prosecutors assigned to cover a community, and who are attuned to the complaints of the members of the community, will be better equipped to work with police to identify and target problem streets or intersections before a tragedy occurs. Second, I have called first among the candidates for a dedicated Vehicular Crimes Unit within the District Attorney's office. Among the focuses of this Unit will be to consider high-risk intersections or traffic zones in particular neighborhoods that have