Streetsblog New York City

Details are scarce surrounding a serious traffic crash involving a Brooklyn pedestrian last week. While FDNY confirmed that the crash occurred, and that the victim was severely hurt, NYPD said the department has no information.

On April 17, @NYScanner — an anonymous Twitter feed that apparently gleans information from police scanners — tweeted that a pedestrian was struck at Foster Avenue and East 83rd Street, in Canarsie. The tweet said the victim was dead on arrival at Brookdale Hospital, and that the NYPD Collision Investigation Squad was on the scene.

FDNY got the call at 3:51 p.m., according to a spokesperson. The victim, an elderly man, was transported to Brookdale Hospital in cardiac arrest, the spokesperson said. FDNY could not confirm whether the victim was dead on arrival.

The NYPD public information office had no information on the crash. Nor did the 69th Precinct, where the crash occurred, though the officer we spoke with did attempt to help us. Streetsblog has been unable to find any media coverage.

This serious crash occurred in the 69th Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector George Fitzgibbon, the commanding officer, go to the next precinct community council meeting. The 69th Precinct council meetings happen at 8 p.m. on the last Tuesday of the month at the precinct, 9720 Foster Avenue, or St. Alban’s Church, 9408 Farragut Road. Call 718-257-6205 for information.

This crash occurred on the border of City Council districts represented by Lew Fidler and Jumaane Williams. To encourage Fidler to take action to improve street safety in his district and citywide, contact him at 212-788-7286 or LFidler@council.nyc.gov. Williams can be reached at 212-788-6859 and @JumaaneWilliams.

Curb-jumping motorists have crashed into places of business in Brooklyn and Queens in two incidents since Tuesday morning, leaving one dead and several injured, including a man whose legs were reported severed.

At approximately 11:40 a.m. yesterday, a speeding driver rear-ended a vehicle on 126th Street in Willets Point, then veered off the street and crashed into an auto body shop, according to NYPD and published reports. The motorist hit one employee who was standing on the sidewalk, severing his legs below the knees. The driver then hit one or more vehicles inside the shop, and two mechanics. One man, age 33, was killed. The other man inside the shop, age 34, was reported in serious but stable condition, and the 30-year-old man who lost his legs was listed in critical condition, according to NYPD and the Times Ledger.

DNAinfo posted photos of the driver, age 52, being interviewed by police. No arrests were made yesterday, and NYPD had no further information on charges or summonses as of this morning. Police had not yet released the identity of the man who was killed. A commenter on DNAinfo who identified the victim as his father posted a photo on Facebook.

At 6:15 a.m. today in Park Slope, a motorist drove through the front of a deli at 439 Fifth Avenue. The Post reported that a store employee and the driver were injured.

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Denim McLean, the toddler who was one of 10 people struck by a curb-jumping motorist in East Flatbush last month, died from his injuries.

Other than driver speed, it’s still not clear what caused the March 30 crash, which put at least three others in the hospital. The victims included Denim’s mother, Wendy McLean, who remains in a coma.

NYPD initially told the media that the driver was northbound on Utica Avenue near Church Avenue when she swerved to avoid another vehicle. Police also said the 48-year-old driver ”accidentally” hit the accelerator instead of the brake as she approached a red light. Over the weekend the Post reported that the driver “told investigators her brakes failed before she blew a light and jumped the sidewalk.” No charges were filed by police or Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

In the words of Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., this crash is another example of NYPD acting as defense counsel for the driver. More important, it again points to a justice system that cares less about the car on the bloody sidewalk than the feelings of the motorist who put it there.

A study conducted by doctors and researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found that 6 percent of pedestrians injured by motorists were struck while on a sidewalk. Days before the crash that killed Denim McLean, the Post talked to attorney Steve Vaccaro about motorists who have escaped charges for recent curb-jumping incidents that resulted in death or injury. Of the driver who put 90-year-old Mansoor Day in extremely critical condition, an anonymous source said the “Manhattan District Attorney’s Office found that his behavior did not amount to criminality.” Likewise, the drivers who killed pedestrians Tenzin Drudak in Queens and Martha Atwater in Brooklyn were not charged for causing a death. Wrote the Post:

Under the law, when drivers haven’t been drinking, prosecutors must first find “recklessness” when applying the most serious criminal charges.

That means the driver was aware of the risk of his or her behavior but disregarded it anyway — a state of mind that is often difficult to prove in court.

One way to increase the odds of criminalizing driver behavior would be to presume that any motorist who ended up on the sidewalk was reckless.

That would put the onus on the driver to explain how he got up there, similar to the presumption of recklessness assumed for drivers who get behind the wheel sloshed.

Others are ahead of New York in penalizing reckless drivers. In Alabama, to cause a death while violating a traffic law is to commit homicide, regardless of intent. The Washington, DC, negligent homicide statute specifically precludes willful or wanton acts, and requires only that a vehicular death be precipitated by careless or reckless driving.

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A two-vehicle collision left an NYU bus on a Greenwich Village sidewalk this morning, in an NYPD precinct where speed enforcement, for all intents and purposes, is non-existent.

Tipster Philip Winn snapped these photos at Lafayette Street and E. 4th Street at around 9:30 a.m., after the second vehicle, a passenger car, had been towed away. FDNY got the call at 8:26, according to a spokesperson. The NYU bus was on the sidewalk at the northeast corner of the intersection, with windows shattered, according to another witness.

An employee with NYU buses told Winn both drivers were injured. One person was transported to Bellevue Hospital, FDNY said.

Chad Marlow, a member of Community Board 3, wrote to EV Grieve:

“I passed by the NYU bus this morning. Couldn’t get too close because my kids were with me and it didn’t look good. The bus definitely collided pretty violently with a black car (not certain if private or livery). When I passed by there were two fire trucks and at least one ambulance on the scene. It looked like the firefighters were making an effort to pry open the black car.”

Motor vehicles operated on NYC surface streets should never collide with enough force to cause serious injury to vehicle occupants, much less require the jaws of life. Fortunately, this crash that ended with at least one vehicle on a sidewalk apparently did not result in a pedestrian being injured or killed.

A study conducted by doctors and researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found that 6 percent of pedestrians injured by motorists were struck while on a sidewalk. No fewer than three NYC pedestrians have died at the hands of curb-jumping motorists in recent weeks, with many more known injured. Just days ago a motorist hit up to 10 people on a sidewalk in East Flatbush, leaving four in critical condition, including a 2-year-old child who was reported brain dead. Curb-jumping drivers have recently inflicted serious injuries upon seniors in Manhattan and Queens.

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The pedestrian killed by a truck driver at Flatbush and Atlantic on Wednesday has been identified as Irvin Gitlitz, 83, according to NYPD.

Police say Gitlitz stepped between parked cars into the path of the truck driver, who was not charged or summonsed. Photos of the scene indicate that the truck was not equipped with required crossover mirrors, which enable the driver to see what’s directly in front of the cab.

Gitlitz lived a short distance away, at 334 Bergen Street, a police spokesperson said. The crash occurred in the 78th Precinct, near the location where another pedestrian, Ronald Sinvil, was killed by the driver of a city sanitation vehicle last December.

Gitlitz was at least the eleventh senior to die in city traffic in 2013, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog, and at least the third NYC pedestrian killed by a tractor-trailer driver in the last five weeks.

Another Wednesday crash claimed the life of a pedestrian in Elmhurst. Police say a man stepped between parked vehicles into the path of an MTA bus, on Broadway near 77th Street, at around 7:30 last night. The victim carried no identification, and as of this morning NYPD did not know who he was. The Q53 was carrying passengers at the time of the crash, according to reports. No summonses were issued.

Last night’s fatal crash occurred in the 110th Precinct, and in the City Council district represented by Daniel Dromm.

Update: NYPD has identified the victim as 83-year-old Irvin Gitlitz.

Another NYC pedestrian has been killed by a truck driver, this time at the intersection of Flatbush and Fourth Avenues. The crash happened this afternoon.

The victim, a male in his 40s, was struck at around 12:50 p.m., and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to NYPD and a DNAinfo story. An NYPD spokesperson said the preliminary report “looks like [the victim] was walking between two parked vehicles.”

Streetsblog was alerted to the crash by reader Ian Dutton, who took photos of the scene. It appears as if the victim is in the street on Flatbush, slightly east of Fourth, and the trucker came to a stop in the intersection, with the truck’s trailer in the crosswalk.

One picture seems to indicate that, though the cab has New York plates, the truck is not equipped with crossover mirrors, which are designed to allow drivers of trucks like this one to see what is directly in front of them. Trucks registered outside New York are exempt from the mirror requirement, but trucks registered in New York State and operated within the city are mandated by law to have them. Trucks exceeding 55 feet in length, as this one appears to be, are not allowed on surface streets without a permit.

NYPD had no information regarding summonses, and the spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing.

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Twenty people were killed in New York City traffic in February, and 3,531 were injured, according to the latest NYPD crash data report [PDF].

As of the end of February, 33 pedestrians and cyclists have been killed by city motorists this year, and 2,408 injured, compared to 23 deaths and 2,392 injuries for the same period in 2012.

Citywide, at least 13 pedestrians were fatally struck by drivers in February: four in Manhattan; one in the Bronx; one in Brooklyn; six in Queens; and one in Staten Island. Among the victims were Bujar Hasimja, Shu Ying Liu, Carlos Carlo, Ryo Oyamada, Martha Atwater, John Eberling, Amar Diarrassouba, an unidentified man in Queens, and an unidentified woman in Manhattan. No cyclist fatalities were reported by NYPD.

Of nine fatal crashes reported by Streetsblog and other outlets, one motorist was known to have been charged for causing a death: Viveshdyal Thakoordyal was charged with manslaughter and driving while intoxicated for the crash that killed John Eberling. Carlos Carlo was struck by a hit-and-run driver who was not immediately caught or identified; Ryo Oyamada was killed by an officer driving an NYPD cruiser. Historically, nearly half of motorists who kill a New York City pedestrian or cyclist do not receive so much as a citation for careless driving.

At least one child and five seniors were killed by motorists in February: Amar Diarrassouba, 6; Bujar Hasimja, 72; Shu Ying Liu, 69; Carlos Carlo, 65; John Eberling, 76; and the unnamed Queens victim, whose age was reported as 67.

Fatal crashes occurred in City Council districts represented by James Oddo, Elizabeth Crowley, Ruben Wills, Jimmy Van Bramer, Steve Levin, Rosie Mendez, Eric Ulrich, Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Speaker Christine Quinn, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog.

Across the city, 982 pedestrians and 128 cyclists were reported hurt in collisions with motor vehicles. Per NYPD policy, few of these crashes were investigated by trained officers.

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A motorist jumped the curb and slammed into a bus stop and scaffolding in East Flatbush on Saturday, striking up to 10 pedestrians. Four people were hospitalized in critical condition, including a woman and her young son. According to the Post, Denim McLean, whose age has been reported as 2 and 3, is brain dead.

Within hours NYPD told the media that charges were unlikely, despite witness accounts that the driver was speeding.

The crash occurred in the 67th Precinct, where at least three pedestrians have died in traffic in the last five months, and where police issued just 45 speeding tickets in 2012 — an average of one every eight days.

Details vary somewhat as to how the crash unfolded. The Times reported that, according to NYPD, the driver was northbound on Utica Avenue near Church Avenue at around 6:50 p.m. when she swerved to avoid another vehicle. Police told DNAinfo that the driver, 48, “accidentally” hit the accelerator instead of the brake as she approached a red light at Utica and Church: “As she swerved to avoid colliding with the traffic around her, the vehicle jumped onto the sidewalk, hitting up to nine pedestrians, police said.”

From the Post:

Witnesses saw the boy [Denim McLean] facedown and unconscious near a pile of shattered glass, blood gushing from his tiny head.

“That little baby looked dead,” said Lawrence Nicholas, who rushed over from a nearby hair salon.

“When I looked in the baby’s eyes, I never saw any life. I started to cry,” said Paris Rainey, 30.

Good Samaritans tried to revive the injured boy.

“I ran outside and jumped over the car. I tried to do CPR on the baby,” said Lenox Blocker, 40. “The baby wasn’t even winking.”

“They said the lady who hit them must have fainted or did something, because she didn’t know what happened,” said the boy’s aunt, Dierdra McCorkle, 51.

The Post says Wendy McLean, 37, is semi-comatose and does not know of her son’s condition. Another female victim was pinned to a building, and one was an 86-year-old man, according to the Post.

Witnesses told the Daily News that the unnamed driver, who was hospitalized along with a passenger, was speeding before the crash. That she jumped a curb and hit multiple people with a vehicle is not in dispute. Nevertheless, NYPD apparently concluded its work with characteristic haste. As early as 10:27 p.m. Saturday, less than four hours after the incident, the Post reported: “Police do not believe the crash was a crime.” A Post follow-up published this morning reads: “Cops said the driver passed a breath-alcohol test and would not be charged.”

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A woman was struck and killed by a driver who jumped the curb and drove across a field near the Bronx Botanical Garden last weekend.

Sook-Ja Kim, 63, was in a wide grassy median that serves as a park area on Mosholu Parkway near Bainbridge Avenue when she was hit from behind by a motorist at around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday, March 17.

NYPD told the media that the driver, a 22-year-old man whose name was not released, had a seizure and “lost control” of the Honda sedan he was driving.

“I saw the car cross the highway and driving in the wrong direction. He was going like 100 miles-per-hour, yes. The guy was sick or something was wrong with the young driver,” said witness Marcelino Hernandez to the Norwood News, which published a thorough account of the crash.

The story says that on Saturday “a large group of children” played football on the field where Kim was struck.

“I cross here all the time with my kids,” Hernandez said about the area of the parkway at Bainbridge Avenue. “It’s not safe, you’re not suppose to play there. Nobody should be there. This roadway is very dangerous.”

Having learned that there was speculation that the driver had an epileptic seizure, Hernandez said he felt new laws should be created for drivers who take medication when they shouldn’t, or drivers who don’t take medication when they should.

Kim died at St. Barnabas Hospital. No charges were filed against the driver, and no summonses were issued.

Sook-Ja Kim was at least the third NYC pedestrian killed by a curb-jumping motorist in the last month. Martha Atwater was struck outside a shop in Cobble Hill by a driver who police said had a diabetic seizure. An unidentified woman was hit on a sidewalk in Kips Bay after two drivers collided on Third Avenue. No charges were filed for either of those deaths.

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Motor vehicle occupant deaths increased by 46 percent from 2011 to last year, NYC DOT said today, as the agency emphasized the need for automated enforcement with the release of 2012 traffic fatality counts.

There were 274 traffic deaths in NYC in 2012, compared to 245 in 2011. Motor vehicle occupant fatalities increased from 50 to 73. The number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths was mostly unchanged: 166 in 2012 compared to 163 in 2011. Pedestrian fatalities were up in 2012, while cyclist deaths decreased.

Speeding was the leading single factor in traffic deaths, contributing to 81 fatal crashes.

Other factoids from DOT:

• Most fatal crashes involved “speeding and disregard of red lights or stop signs, driver inattention and/or alcohol.”
• Speeding was a factor in 65 percent more crashes in 2012 than in 2011 (81 compared to 49).
• Fatal hit-and-runs increased 31 percent from 2010 to 2012.
• For the third year in a row, no pedestrians were killed in crashes with cyclists.

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