The NYPD is Lowering the City Speed Limit And They Really, Really Want New Yorkers to Know About It

The NYPD is set to enforce a new 25 MPH speed limit in the city and it seems the department is determined to make sure all Manhattanites, most of whom don't even own cars, learn all about the rules before they take effect in November.

Unfortunately, I had a little-run in with this new speed limit law late Wednesday as I lay flat on my back in bed in my own Manhattan apartment, and despite the fact that I have never, not even once, driven a vehicle within New York City's limits.

As it happened, I was just settling in for some quiet meditation and perhaps a nap when a piercing, shrieking voice penetrated my solitude, rattling my windows, shaking my walls and bearing tidings of slower speeds:

"On Friday, November 7th, the speed limit in New York City will decrease from 30 to 25 mph unless otherwise posted. Slow down, and drive carefully."

This message repeated itself at least half a dozen times.

Watch: NYPD Blasts New York City Neighborhood with Message About New Speed Limit

My peaceful revery permanently shattered, I fretted for a moment that the NYPD S.W.A.T. team had learned of the speeding ticket I incurred but never paid in Colorado last year and was here to break down my door and collect a fine.

By the time the message had been repeated the third time, however, my mind cleared and I managed to raise my weary head to the window to behold a NYPD van parked immediately outside my window, persecuting me with that tiresome dialogue.

It turns out that the lower speed limits are the idea of New York City's freshly minted, traffic rule violating, speeding, jay-walking Mayor Bill DeBlasio.

DeBlasio must have decided sometime between the Ebola outbreak and spate of 2014 police beatings (police beating civilians, not usually the other way around) that the best way to reduce pedestrian fatalities in the Big Apple was to lower the speed limit from 30 MPH to 25. 178 pedestrians were killed traffic in a city of 8.4 million in 2013, according to the NYPD's numbers.

Thanks for the thought Mayor DeBlasio, but as a frequent pedestrian myself in New York City, I've seen how you veteran New Yorkers drive. I highly doubt even a single New Yorker will drive a single MPH slower because of this new law. But good luck. I hope it works.

Meanwhile, what I really want, is my own new law, banning your police officers from making such a massive commotion my window during my established nap hour.

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