Headline of the Day

To Protect And Swerve: NYPD Cop Has 547 Speeding Tickets Yet Remains On The Force 

—Streetsblog New York City, on the serial (to the point of being surreal) traffic offender NYC police officer

The fact that this guy has been caught multiple times speeding on residential streets, school zones, etc. yet remains a police officer indicates a problem.

I'm a bit of a cynic, but my guess is that he's used his law enforcement connections to get out of paying fines. 

Conservatively, the total fines for those speeding tickets is something north of 30 Grand. 

Is this public enemy #1?

James Giovansanti lives and works on Staten Island. Since 2022, traffic cameras have caught his pickup truck blasting through school zones or running red lights 547 times in that one borough. He received 187 camera-issued tickets in 2025 alone — an average of one every other day.

That record makes Giovansanti the second-most-reckless driver in the city. Because he pilots a 4,800-pound RAM 1500 truck at more than 41 mph across the island, he poses a unique danger to himself and his neighbors. Ticket data show a pattern of dangerous driving in a wide arc from Pleasant Plains to Tompkinsville.

And here’s what makes him a true enemy of the public: Giovansanti is an officer in the New York City Police Department — the agency supposedly in charge of keeping New Yorkers out of harm’s way.

………

Activists say that Giovansanti is a poster child for the urgency of passing the “Stop Super Speeders Act,” a pending bill in Albany that would force the worst repeat speeders to install a speed limiter in their vehicles. If such a law was already in place, Giovansanti’s truck would have been rendered unable to speed on Aug. 7, 2022, just months after he bought it. 

………

Records show that James Giovansanti, 33, reserves the bulk of his speeding for the borough’s densely populated North Shore. A traffic camera on Richmond Avenue and Monsey Place — the same block as P.S. 22, an elementary school that enrolls more than 700 students — issued 25 speeding tickets to the truck.

Another camera on Richmond Terrace and John Street ticketed the truck 50 times. A third camera on Richmond Terrace and Nicholas Avenue ticketed the truck 55 times. Those last two cameras are located just north of Port Richmond High School, which enrolls more than 1,500 teens. 

………

Giovansanti’s choice of car dramatically heightens these risks. An unmodified 2022 RAM 1500 weighs at least 4,775 pounds, measures at least 77 inches tall, and features an enormous, boxy and flat-faced hood. This design limits the driver’s ability to see pedestrians and cyclists and makes it far more likely they will drag a crash victim beneath their car’s chassis instead of throwing them onto its hood.

We could not determine whether Giovansanti has ever harmed someone by speeding. But the circumstantial evidence is not reassuring: The right side of his truck is visibly damaged, and he refused to answer a straightforward question about his collision history.  

Support your local police.