Day: July 24, 2026

Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week ordered the city’s non-emergency trucks be outfitted with devices warning pedestrians of their presence when making turns and that all new vehicles the city acquires be equipped with them as well as technology capping their top speeds.

Mamdani took the action by signing Executive Order 19 on Thursday afternoon.

The measure mandates that the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) add the pedestrian alert devices to the 4,000 city fleet trucks it manages by June 2029. The technology connects to vehicles’ turn signals and emits a noise to warn pedestrians and cyclists when they are turning a corner.

The executive order also requires DCAS to ensure that when inking contracts to purchase new non-emergency municipal cars and trucks, they are equipped with intelligent speed assistance technology.

The gadgets, also known as speed-limiting devices, prevent the vehicles in which they have been installed from exceeding the speed limit by a few miles or surpassing a different threshold set by those installing them. They are designed to protect pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users by preventing lead-footed drivers from accelerating to dangerous speeds.

“Our administration expects every driver to do their part to keep our streets safe for everyone, and that begins with those behind the wheel of our City vehicles,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Pedestrian alerts and speed-limiting technology deliver immediate results, and we can waste no time in keeping our neighbors safe.”

DCAS manages the largest municipal vehicle fleet sporting speed-limiting devices in the country, according to Mamdani’s office.

The city has installed the safety measures on 1,000 of its fleet vehicles, City Hall said. Those represent 23 distinct vehicle classes used across 21 different city agencies.

The vehicles have driven over 8 million miles since 2022, according to the city, and have reduced hazardous speeding by 64%.

Drivers of private vehicles could now also end up with speed-limiting devices in their automobiles — albeit against their will.

With the passage of the Stop Super Speeders Act in this year’s state budget, scofflaw drivers who rack up at least 16 school-zone speed-camera tickets in a 12-month period could be ordered by a judge to have a speed limiter installed in their vehicle. However, the city Department of Transportation is still working with other city agencies to implement the program.

A Brooklyn-based property management company will have to pay four tenants up to $1,200 each for illegally locking them out of their apartments following an investigation by the Office of Attorney General (OAG) Letitia James, according to an announcement on Friday.

The investigation found that Spigro Management, LLC and its lead property manager, Saul Friedman, illegally evicted tenants from four different buildings in Brooklyn and the Bronx between 2020 and 2025.

James said that the settlement, which was signed on Wednesday, represented OAG’s larger commitment to protecting tenants in New York.

“Spigro callously violated the trust, safety, and privacy of occupants by illegally changing their locks while they were not home,” said James. “Attempting to evict people from their homes by sneaking in and changing the locks is as sinister as it is shameful. My office will always take action against any property manager or landlord that violates tenants’ rights.”

Most of the cases involved illegally evicting additional occupants by changing the locks following the death of loved ones who they shared the apartments with. Frequently, Spigro claimed the tenants had never lived in the apartment in the first place, although they had been tenants for decades, according to court documents.

In one case, Spigro changed the locks while a tenant was taking out the trash. The man, who had lived for 22 years in an apartment in Brooklyn with his mother up until her death. After Spigro locked him out, the tenant said he heard from neighbors that the landlord was removing his belongings from the apartment without permission.

In another case, an employee of Spigro was working as a porter and living on-site at a Brooklyn building for around a year when he was injured on the job. The man filed for workers compensation and required surgery. When he returned home, he found that the company had fired him and changed the locks on his apartment, denying that he had ever been an employee.

In addition to individual restitution, the management company must pay $23,500 in penalties and put guardrails in place to prevent future illegal evictions. For the 40 buildings it manages, Spigro is required to develop an internal lock-out policy, detailing the legal steps employees must take to change a tenant’s locks along with a log of all lock changes. OAG will monitor Spigro for three years, requiring the company to report any allegations of illegal evictions to ensure compliance.