Two other vehicles associated with Lander’s office have a combined eight tickets for speeding in school zones, and a spokeswoman said NYC taxpayers footed the bill
Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller now running for Congress, championed a law cracking down on dangerous driving near schools. He has also racked up thousands of dollars in tickets, many of which came from speeding violations in school zones.
The left-wing Democrat, who is challenging Levi Strauss heir Dan Goldman in the primary to represent New York’s 10th Congressional District, accumulated $6,055 in ticket fines for various traffic violations between 2013 and 2024, according to data from watchdog website HowsMyDriving. Lander earned 10 of the 134 parking and speeding violations listed by speeding in school zones.
The busts include 4 for standing in bus stop zones, 12 for fire hydrant violations, and 35 for expired inspection or registration stickers, records show.
Two other cars, which a Lander spokeswoman said were linked to the comptroller’s office, had another combined 21 violations totaling $1,340, though the spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon that Lander had never driven those cars himself. Those two cars have a combined eight school zone speeding violations, and the spokeswoman told the Free Beacon that New York City taxpayers footed the bill for the tickets.
During his time in public office, though, Lander has taken a tough line on dangerous driving. As a member of the New York City Council, he sponsored the Reckless Driver Accountability Act in 2020, saying it would be designed “to target the city’s worst offenders (measured by red-light and school speed zone camera violations) with escalating consequences.”
“Traffic crashes are consistently a leading cause of preventable deaths in New York City—and reckless driving is too often the cause,” Lander said in 2023. “Without the Reckless Driver Accountability Act, and in the absence of any City or State programs in place to improve or replace it, the City’s transportation department and traffic courts have no tools at their disposal to hold the most dangerous drivers accountable outside of a fine that is currently less than a parking ticket, no matter how many red lights they run or times they speed in school zones.”
In April 2021, after Lander’s speeding violations first emerged, he issued an 800-word mea culpa saying he needed “to slow down and drive less.” But two of the school-zone speeding violations he incurred came in December 2021 and May 2023, after he made his pledge.
“After Brad’s seven speed camera violations in 2020-2021, he took accountability, met with members of Families for Safe Streets, and changed his behavior,” Lander’s spokeswoman told the Free Beacon. “Over the past 4 years, since 2022, he has only received one speed camera violation (in 2023) and no other moving violations.”
Lander has claimed to have “paid every single ticket on time,” but records from the New York City Department of Finance showed that the former comptroller incurred $45 in late fees, the New York Post reported in 2024.
Lander’s speeding tickets add him to a list of Democratic politicians who have shown little regard for traffic laws. Virginia attorney general Jay Jones (D.), best known for fantasizing about shooting a Republican former colleague and wishing death on that colleague’s children, was convicted of reckless driving in 2022 after driving at 116 miles per hour on a highway at midnight.
Democratic congresswoman Susan Wild (Pa.) had a parking boot placed on her car in Washington, D.C., for $775 in unpaid speeding tickets and other violations, the Free Beacon reported in 2024. Wild faced scrutiny in 2022 when she conducted a virtual campaign event while driving.
The Free Beacon reported on multiple instances in 2021 in which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) defied traffic regulations by illegally parking her Tesla near a Whole Foods in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Lander cross-endorsed New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) in the city’s 2025 Democratic mayoral primary, helping the democratic socialist win the nomination, and has positioned himself as a far-left challenger to Goldman. An outspoken critic of Israel, Lander has vowed to oppose military aid—both offensive and defensive—if he is elected to the House of Representatives.
He has endorsements from noted left-wing politicians such as Mamdani, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), and New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams (D.), as well as organizations like the Working Families Party.
