Mother of boy killed by cab pleads for safety legislation

The devastated mom of the Upper West Side boy who was killed by a yellow taxi earlier this year gave emotional testimony in front of the Taxi & Limousine Commission on Thursday about how drivers continue to operate recklessly in the city.

“On West End Avenue he started speeding. I asked him to slow down,” Dana Lerner, who lost her son Cooper Stock there in January, testified of a cab trip on Monday. “I then asked him if he ever heard of Cooper’s Law… He had no idea what I was talking about.”

The new bill, which will go into effect on Sunday, will give the TLC power to suspend a hack’s license if the driver commits a safety violation in a crash where a person is critically injured or killed.

It is part of Vision Zero, Mayor de Blasio’s plan to end traffic deaths on citywide streets.

Lerner said she showed the driver where her son was killed, and gave him a bracelet with her child’s name.

“I made him promise that he wouldn’t speed again,” she said, and called on the Taxi and Limousine Commission to educate cabbies on new safety legislation. “There are many drivers that are not safe. I expect accountability from all of you.”

The TLC hearing was held on new safety rules, which include new taxi decals that would caution drivers to be safer when making a left turn.

Lerner and Dr. Richard Stock at a press conference at City Hall in February.Photo: Riyad Hasan

Stock was killed when a driver didn’t yield to him in the crosswalk while making a left turn.

Other new rules would allow the agency to combine DMV and TLC safety-related points on a license when determining whether a driver should be on the road.

“This is a difficult and necessary area of legislation,” said TLC Commissioner Meera Joshi of the new rules.

Officials said 24,000 TLC drivers, which includes black and livery cars, were in crashes last year.

Less than 1 percent of the collisions had an injury or death.

Bhairavi Desai, head of the union New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said there is a misconception that cabbies are less safe than other drivers and that they have been dehumanized.

“Throughout Vision Zero, one thing that has frustrated all of us is that’s been very little said about shared responsibility on the streets,” she said.

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