New York City is famed for many things: its concrete jungle, constant hustle and bustle, and iconic yellow taxis. The famous tagline “the city that never sleeps,” immortalized by the 1977 Frank Sinatra song “New York, New York,” is an apt description of its 24/7 metropolitan lifestyle.
When it comes to taxis and cars, a 2025 study by Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets found that reckless driving is rising and often goes unpunished.
The ten drivers with the most tickets have paid thousands of dollars in fines, yet the penalties have not stopped them from speeding on highways, in suburban areas, and even on school roads where limits are heavily reduced.
The Top 10 Biggest Speeders
Per Transport Alternatives, more than 2.5 million residents live within a five-minute walk of an intersection where a top “super speeder” was caught speeding in 2025. New York City’s population was estimated at 8.48 million as of July 2024.
Image Credit: NYC Open Data.
Across the five boroughs, the worst driver received 259 tickets in Brooklyn and paid $63,744.23 in fines, yet remains on the road. The car was also the worst offender in 2024, and the driver reportedly accumulated more than 1,000 speeding tickets.
Following the Audi is a black 2017 Lexus IS and a white 2023 RAM 1500. A white 2022 Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class and a grey 2022 Chevrolet Malibu follow, both sharing the same number of tickets.
The Areas Most Affected by Dangerous Drivers
Super speeders repeatedly rack up violations at the same intersections. The ten worst offenders received an average of 23 tickets at their most frequently used intersection, nearly ten times the number most New York drivers accumulate across the entire city in a year.
On average, 87% of their speeding tickets occur within a single borough, showing how concentrated their behavior is geographically. Half of these drivers focus their speeding in Brooklyn, particularly in South and East Brooklyn. In one extreme case, a Manhattan driver received 101 speeding tickets on Broadway in just five months.
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Darnell Sealy-McCrorey, a member of Families for Safe Streets, opened up about how these drivers flipped her world upside down: “My daughter was killed by a reckless driver when she was crossing the street. I miss her every day,” she revealed.
“We know that this especially reckless minority of drivers are undeterred by tickets, and we can’t sit by and wait for one of them to kill someone’s loved one.
“Albany [New York State’s Capitol Building location] must pass the Stop Super Speeders bill as part of the final budget to ensure these reckless super speeders finally slow down and stop terrorizing our neighborhoods.”
Fines Are Inconsequential – A Bill Proposed
To combat dangerous driving, the “Stop Super Speeders Bill” has been introduced to help reduce potential injuries and fatalities among pedestrians. The bill proposes installing a speed limiter on vehicles belonging to drivers who receive 16 speeding tickets in a single year, restricting the car to within 5 mph of the posted speed limit.
Similar measures have already been implemented in Washington, D.C., Washington state, and Virginia. According to the report, 75% of drivers with suspended licenses continue driving anyway, but speed limiters have reduced speeding by 64% and hard braking events by 36%, while cutting crash deaths by up to 56%.
Image Credit: Brandonrush – Own work, CC0, Wikimedia.
“When a single driver racks up 259 speeding tickets in one year, that’s not a mistake. That’s a choice. And it’s a choice that puts millions of New Yorkers at risk,” said Manhattan Borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
“More than 2.5 million people — including over half a million children — live within walking distance of intersections where these repeat offenders were caught speeding. In Manhattan alone, one driver blew through school zones on Broadway more than 100 times in just five months.
“That is not normal driving behavior. It is reckless endangerment. Our streets should be safe for kids walking to school, seniors crossing the avenue, and families going about their day — not a racetrack for the most dangerous drivers among us.”
Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso have voiced their support for the bill, joining Manhattan leaders as well as several state senators and assembly members in backing the proposal.
A bill like the “Stop Super Speeders Bill” must first be introduced and approved by committees in the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. It must then pass a full vote in both chambers of the New York State Legislature before being sent to Governor Kathy Hochul, who can sign it into law or veto it.