Chronicles of the pandemic - Streets of Manhattan without traffic become Fast and Furious track

The lockdown for the coronavirus in New York has turned the streets of the Big Apple into a Le Mans circuit. By pressing the foot to the tablet, reckless drivers have accumulated thousands of fines for speeding, in some cases leaving behind crumpled vehicles and crushed human lives. Testimonies reported by the New York Times speak of biker gangs, daredevils on cross and off-road motorcycles who do acrobatics in the canyons between the skyscrapers and of Porsche and Maserati exiting the garages that dart passing through the red in Midtown Manhattan dreaming of being in Daytona or Montecarlo. A drug-driven driver smashed his million-dollar Gemballa Mirage GT by carambola between parked cars in Hells Kitchen. "The streets are empty and aspiring. Fast and Furious think they are living in their favorite video game," city councilor Justin Brannan protested on Twitter, representing Bay Ridge, the neighborhood immortalized in "Saturday Night Fever". Even without traffic, speed cameras have led to double fines: almost 25 thousand on March 27 against 12,600 a month earlier. With emergency rooms clogged for Covid-19, "the driver should suffer from fellow citizens. A small sacrifice during this great crisis," warned the commissioner for transportation, Polly Trottenberg while the head of the City Council, Corey Johnson, proposed to increase fines and reinstate a pilot plan announced and then suspended by Mayor Bill De Blasio: reserving pedestrians part of four major thoroughfares in Manhattan would facilitate travel in compliance with social distancing measures.