One of the three kids hit in the sidewalk-jumping incident in Maspeth has died, and Charles Komanoff of StreetsBlog is skeptical of official claims that the death is unrelated to getting hit by the car just days earlier. In another post, Komanoff issues a call to "Make the Maspeth Crash Horror a Teachable Moment for New York City." That would be nice, but it seems to us that New Yorkers are hopelessly inured to motorist violence, in a way that they never were to the violence of street crime. And we want to know: Why is that?

From The Brooklyn Paper, Aug. 9:

Twelve-year-old hit, killed by van on Prospect Park West
A 12-year-old Park Slope boy was killed by a van on Tuesday evening after he ran into a street near Prospect Park to fetch his soccer ball and was crushed, authorities said.

Samuel Cohen-Eckstein was playing near his Prospect Park West home near Third Street when the ball rolled out onto Prospect Park West and he sprinted into the two-lane street from the Prospect Park side to chase after it, police said.

The youngster fell as he was running and was struck and run over by a 2006 Chevrolet van at about 5:15 pm, cops said.

Emergency responders found the child with critical injuries to his torso and rushed him to New York Methodist Hospital, where he died, according to police.

The driver of the van remained on scene and was not immediately charged or ticketed, cops said. The investigation is ongoing.

It was not immediately clear whether the driver of the van was speeding, but neighbors say that Prospect Park West is a magnet for lead-footed drivers.

"Parts of the avenue are like a raceway," said Tom Prendergast of Prospect Park Southwest, adding that drivers have slowed down since a controversial two-way bike lane was installed on the thoroughfare, cutting the car lanes from three to two.

"But there are still drivers that insist on speeding and who are oblivious to pedestrians that are crossing the avenue," he said.

Cohen-Eckstein was just more than a month from celebrating his bar mitzvah, a Jewish coming-of-age rite, according to a website announcing his occasion.
 

From the New York Times, Oct. 15:

Oregon Father's Memorial Trek Across Country Ends in a Family's Second Tragedy
DENVER — As he made his way across the country, Joe Bell walked through rain squalls, slept in ditches and talked to anyone who would listen about how his gay son had killed himself after being taunted and bullied at school.

Mr. Bell’s artificial knees ached and his feet were mapped with blisters, but he told friends and strangers that he was determined to make it on foot from his home in eastern Oregon to New York City, where his son, Jadin, 15, had dreamed of one day working in fashion or photography. "I miss my son Jadin with all my heart and soul," he wrote on Facebook in late May. "I know you’re with me on this walk."

But last Wednesday, Mr. Bell's American journey—one that drew attention from local newspapers and attracted thousands of followers on social media—ended in an instant on a two-lane road in rural eastern Colorado. He was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer whose driver had apparently fallen asleep, the state police said.

From the NY Times, Nov. 2:

Boy, 9, Is Killed by S.U.V. in Brooklyn

A 9-year-old boy was killed and three other people were hurt when a sport utility vehicle jumped the curb at an intersection in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Saturday, the authorities said. 

 

The Police Department said a 59-year-old man driving a Ford Expedition was traveling west on DeKalb Avenue at about 12:50 p.m. and attempted to make a left turn onto Clermont Avenue when he struck another car and jumped the curb, plowing into a group of pedestrians.

 

The boy, whom the police did not immediately identify, was pinned under the car, the police said. He was declared dead at the crash site.

 

Three other people, two women, ages 47 and 28, and a 5-year-old boy, were taken to Kings County Hospital Center with minor injuries, the police said. 

 

The driver of the S.U.V., whose name was not released, remained on the scene. He did not appear to have been impaired, the police said. 

This takes the damn cake. The NY Times reports Dec. 4: "An unarmed, emotionally disturbed man shot at by the police as he was lurching around traffic near Times Square in September has been charged with assault, on the theory that he was responsible for bullet wounds suffered by two bystanders, according to an indictment unsealed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday." 

Reminds us of the Marikana massacre survivors in South Africa last year being charged with murder for the deaths of their own comrades by the police. It's the cops who should be in the dock! Needlessly firing in a jam-packed Times Square, and then charging some innocent loon who was dancing in traffic? Twisted totalitarian bullshit of the lowest order. What a blow it will be for mere elementary logic if these charges stick. 

But more the point of this particular thread: Said loon, one Glenn Broadnax, 35, of Brooklyn, was (whether he realized it or not) reclaiming public space. It is his damn right to dance in the street! As a citizen, he owns those damn streets! Maybe Broadnax's little Times Square dance was a protest against the domination of public space by the tyranny of the automobile. Maybe he should launch a First Amendment defense.

We're serious.

A 50-car pile-up in Pennsylvania today left one driver dead and dozens of motorists stranded on the state turnpike for hours in the middle of a major snowstorm. The mega-crash near Morgantown left motorists stranded on the road for hours as the snow continued to fall. Meanwhile a 30-car crash in Milwaukee caused multiple injuries. (ABC, Dec. 8)

The beat goes on. From the NY Times, Jan. 11:

9-Year-Old Killed by Taxi Was 'Spirited' and 'Wise'
A 9-year-old boy who was one of two people struck and killed by separate vehicles on the Upper West Side on Friday night was described by his family on Saturday as a "spirited third grader" with a fanatical devotion to the New York Knicks.

The boy, identified by his family as Cooper Stock, was trying to cross the intersection of West End Avenue and West 97th Street with his father at about 9 p.m., the police said, when a taxi making a left turn crashed into them. Cooper was pronounced dead at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

His father, Dr. Richard G. Stock, a radiation oncologist who treated former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani for prostate cancer, suffered a leg injury.

The driver of the taxi, whom the police did not identify, remained on the scene and was given a summons for failing to yield, officials said.

A half-hour earlier and just two blocks away, a private tour bus struck and killed a 73-year-old man as he crossed Broadway on West 96th Street. No charges had been filed against that driver as of Saturday evening and the police had not released either name.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Jan. 15 that he will implement his "Vision Zero" plan to reduce pedestrian traffic fatalities in New York City by installing new cameras and issuing more tickets for speeding, among other measures. He spoke at a site in Queens where an eight-year-old boy was killed by a truck as he walked to school last month. (Capital New York, Jan. 15) 

Police say Noshat Nahian was crossing the intersection of 61st Street and Northern Boulevard in Woodside at about 8 AM when a tractor-trailer making a left turn hit him. The boy was just a block away from his school, PS 152, when he was struck. He was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The driver of the truck, Mauricio Osorio-Palominos, 51, was actually arrested and charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and operating a vehicle in violation of safety rules. (PIX11, Dec. 20) One wonders if he'd have been arrested at all if he hadn't been unlicensed.

It would be nice if de Blasio is really going to execute a serious crackdown on lawless motorists. But note that the automotive trasnport system necessitates expanding the surveillance state with more police cameras on the public streets... We don't need more cameras, we need less cars.... If "Vision Zero" refers to zero traffic fatalities, it can only be acheived through zero cars. We sure wish de Blasio would recognize that...

From the NY Post, Jan. 19:

Cops left an 84-year-old man a bloody mess on Sunday after he was caught jaywalking through an Upper West Side intersection near where a pedestrian had been killed hours earlier.

Kang Wong, who lives nearby, had been strolling north on Broadway, crossing 96th Street in the eastern crosswalk, when an officer told him to stop — for allegedly crossing against the light, just before 5 p.m.

The man didn't seem to understand English-language commands.

Then the cops physically held him while starting to write a ticket, and the still-uncomprehending man tried to wrench himself free. The cops reacted predictably.

The man's blood was spilled all over the pavement, before he was handcuffed and hauled away.

He was taken to a local hospital.

The exceedingly violent arrest came 12 hours after an ambulance struck an Upper West Side woman in front of her own building, sending her into the path of another vehicle and killing her on the spot, authorities said.

It was the third fatal accident within two blocks of 96th Street and Broadway in a little more than a week.

In this latest deadly crash, a 26-year-old Samantha Lee was crossing 96th — mid-block between Broadway and West End Avenue — when she was clipped by the driver’s side mirror of a westbound St. Luke’s Hospital ambulance at 4:45 a.m., police said.

Lee ended up face-down in eastbound lanes when she was run over by a red, four-door Dodge Charger, officials said.

She woman was pronounced dead at the scene. [Sic]

Both drivers, of the ambulance and Charger, stayed at the scene and no arrests were immediately made cops said.

How much longer are we going to tolerate this tyranny?

Oh, wait. This isn't tyranny. It's normality. Silly me.

From The Villager, Feb. 13:

In a deadly traffic accident that killed an M.T.A. bus driver and left several others injured on Wednesday, around 5:30 a.m., a stolen truck crashed into a 14th St. cross-town bus at Seventh Ave., sending both vehicles careening into the intersection’s southeast corner.

The vehicles smashed into a scaffold, and two parked cars and a cab were also struck.

According to the police report, E.M.S. medics responded to the scene and declared the bus’s operator, William Pena, 49, of Hillside, N.J., dead on arrival. A 17-year veteran driver of the cross-town route, Pena was married and had a teenage daughter. According to the New York Post, he was...ejected from the bus by the impact of hitting the scaffold.

Two pedestrians at the location were removed to local hospitals in stable condition. Three passengers on the bus were also injured, as was 15-year food vendor Ashraf Marei, who, enclosed inside his food cart, suffered minor injuries after a cab clipped his cart and boiling water spilled on him. He was treated at Beth Israel.

A person on a three-wheeled scooter who was struck by the truck prior to the collision with the bus was removed to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

The stolen orange box truck's sides were marked "18 Rabbits Granola." The driver — identified by the Daily News as Dominic Whilby, 22, of Georgia — was removed to Bellevue Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

And what exactly was it that was worth all this carnage? Oh right, being a privileged anti-social idiot with a complete sense of entitlement:

The Post subsequently reported that Whilby is the nephew of male model Tyson Beckford and had been out drinking with him and Beckford’s girlfriend, Victoria’s Secret model Shanina Shaik, at a Fashion Week party in Chelsea. Whilby was reportedly bounced from 1OAK on W. 17th St. around 3:30 a.m. for "getting too frisky with some women," then wandered over to the nearby Maritime Hotel on W. 16th St., where he passed out in the lobby and was again kicked out. Drifting down the street and unable to find a limo, he jumped into the truck, which had the keys in the ignition, and took off, crashing into several parked cars along the way.

Another case soon to be utterly forgotten by all but the survivors and the kin of the deceased...

A couple of years ago we noted an interesting historical primer on the "Invention of Jaywalking." Now a BBC News analysis, "Jaywalking: How the car industry outlawed crossing the road," provides further enlightenment...

Enforcement of anti-jaywalking laws in the US is sporadic, often only triggered by repeated complaints from drivers about pedestrian behaviour in a particular place. But jaywalking remains illegal across the country, and has been for many decades.

The first known reference to it dates to December 1913, says Peter Norton, a history professor at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic - The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. That month a department store in Syracuse hired a Santa Claus who stood on the street with a megaphone, bellowing at people who didn't cross properly and calling them jaywalkers.

"I don't know how this got to Syracuse, but in mid-western slang a jay was a person from the country who was an empty-headed chatterbox, like a bluejay," he says.

The word was first used to describe "someone from the countryside who goes to the city and is so dazzled by the lights and the show windows that they keep stopping and getting in the way of other pedestrians".

The use of jaywalking as a term of ridicule against pedestrians crossing roads took off in the 1920s.

A key moment, says Norton, was a petition signed by 42,000 people in Cincinnati in 1923 to limit the speed of cars mechanically to 25mph (40kph). Though the petition failed, an alarmed auto industry scrambled to shift the blame for pedestrian casualties from drivers to walkers...

"The newspaper coverage quite suddenly changes, so that in 1923 they're all blaming the drivers, and by late 1924 they're all blaming jaywalking," Norton says.

Soon, he adds, car lobby groups also started taking over school safety education, stressing that "streets are for cars and children need to stay out of them". Anti-jaywalking laws were adopted in many cities in the late 1920s, and became the norm by the 1930s...

Meanwhile, an overriding goal of city planners and engineers became allowing traffic to circulate unhindered.

"For years, pedestrians were essentially written out of the equation when it came to designing streets," says Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic - Why We Drive the Way We Do.

"They didn't even appear in early computer models, and when they did, it was largely for their role as 'impedance' - blocking vehicle traffic."

This made US cities unusually hostile to walkers, says Vanderbilt. Jaywalking became an "often misunderstood umbrella term", covering many situations in which the pedestrian should in fact have the right of way.

Some countries have followed the lead of the US and imposed anti-jaywalking measures. Police in China began a fresh push to stop jaywalking last year, fining offenders and in Shanghai, making them read out traffic regulations aloud.

Another example of China following the bad example of the US. Exactly the opposite of what needs to happen... 

WNYC runs a heart-wrenching account of the case of Allison Liao, 3, who was killed by an SUV while crossing Main Street in Flushing with her grandmother on Oct. 7, 2013—one of the 156 pedestrians killed in New York City traffic last year. Allison and her grandmother had the right of way. The driver faced no consequences. More at Streetsblog.
 

Another longtime Lower East Side fixture is gone. From the NY Post, March 27:

Punk rocker struck, killed by SUV in East Village: cops
A 47-year-old punk rock guitarist died at dawn Thursday after being struck by an SUV while crossing the street near her East Village apartment.

"She was a loving, upbeat, and interesting person," the distraught boyfriend of Lisa Julian said at Beth Israel Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

"She was very happy. It’s tough to talk about her right now," said the boyfriend, Alexander Rubinstein, 21.

No criminality is suspected, though the accident remains under investigation, cops said

Julian was crossing the street at Third Avenue and St. Mark’s Place when a white Ford Explorer hit her at around 6:30 a.m., according to police.

"She was walking. I don’t think she was paying attention," the vehicle's stunned driver, Oliver Parris, 58, said as he lingered at the scene after talking to police

Parris delivers newspapers to apartments for a living, and had just finished for the day. He was driving home to Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, when he struck Julian.

"She was crossing against the light. I had a green light," he said sadly.
"I tried to avoid her. I swerved."

Note the usual jaundiced reporting. "No criminality is suspected." That inevitable, ironic line. She "wasn't paying attention." So she's to blame. The victim is always to blame. The driver "swerved," but doesn't say whether he hit the breaks. Generally, motorists will HIT THE GAS if they see a pedestrian in their way without the right of way, to terrorize 'em and teach 'em a lesson. Sure he "swerved"—at the last possible micro-second after first SPEEDING UP. In all probability.

When, when, when will New Yorkers rise up against this tyranny?

When?

From KPTV in Portland, Ore., May 4:

A naked man doing push-ups in the middle of a North Portland street was struck and killed by a car early Sunday morning.

North Precinct officers first responded to the report of a naked man running in traffic near North Columbia Boulevard and Portsmouth Avenue at 4:04 a.m.

While they were en route, police received a second report that the naked man was doing push-ups in the road. Then, they received a third report: he had been struck by a car.

Officers and medical personnel arrived and found the man dead.

The driver who struck the man remained at the scene and was cooperative. The driver was not impaired by alcohol or drugs.

So taking a human life is OK, as long as you aren't stoned. Motorists have the right to be judge, jury and executioner if some harmless loon disregards social norms?

Where is the outrage?

Glad to see him busted, but if he had a license and hadn't fled the scene, he probably would've got away with it. From WPIX, May 5:

A 62-year-old driver has been arrested in connection with a crash that killed a 9-year-old girl and injured five other people in Brooklyn, police said Monday.

Kenneth Palache, of Huntington, Long Island, faces charges of criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and operating a motor vehicle without a license.

Two blocks away from the crash site, police said officers tried to pull over Palache because his car matched the description of a vehicle involved in an earlier hit-and-run. But when officers approached Palache’s car, the driver allegedly took off.

Traveling home from church with a friend and her friend’s mother, Rebecca Ramnarine, of Queens, was a passenger in a sedan when Palache’s Honda minivan struck it near Avenue N and Remsen Avenue about 5 p.m. Sunday, police said.

Officials said the minivan also struck another vehicle.

The 9-year-old girl, whose family said wanted to grow up to be a pediatrician, was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Two other occupants in the sedan and three people in the other vehicle were hospitalized in stable condition.

From The Villager, May 12:

After a state Senate staffer was nearly killed last month by an unidentified bicyclist who hit him and fled the scene, state Senator Brad Hoylman is calling for much stiffer criminal penalties for hit-and-run cyclists.

The Senate staffer, John Allen, 70, who lives on the Upper West Side, was walking across West 40th St. at Sixth Ave. on Mon., April 7, around 2 p.m., when he was mowed down by the speeding cyclist, according to police. The crash was so serious that the senior was left with a fractured skull, and briefly had to be placed in a medically induced coma after being rushed to Bellevue Hospital that day.

Allen is also a personal friend of Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. A former Upper West Side city councilmember, Brewer initially explained the incident to Hoylman — along with dozens of Chelsea residents — at an April 21 forum at the Hudson Guild community center on W. 26th St.

Brewer’s recounting of the hit-and-run crash came in response to a question from Chelsea seniors — residents of the nearby Penn South housing complex, who frequently raise concerns about cyclists who they claim blow through red lights or ride the wrong way in the Eighth and Ninth Aves. bike lanes around their development.

The case that sparked this bill is an example of "bad facts." I have ZERO sympathy for bicyclists who adopt the Social Darwinist mentality of motorists. But let's keep in mind that: a.) This is a man-bites-dog story. Bike-on-pedestrian collisions ironically get MORE play because they are far LESS frequent (as well as less likely to be deadly). b.) It is the dominance of cars that has turned the streets into a Darwinian death race, and encourages this kind of behavior.

And, by the way, there is a very good case for allowing bicycles to run red ligts, treating them essentially the way motorists (theoretically) treat stop signs. Idaho has already adopted this policy. There is a good piece exploring the question at Vox...

From NBC New York, July 2:

Woman Walking Dog Killed by City Garbage Truck in Chelsea
A woman walking her dog was hit and killed by a city garbage truck in Chelsea Wednesday morning after the pup ran underneath the truck and she went after it, authorities say.

Jackie Haeflinger, 58, was walking her dog near Seventh Avenue and West 15th Street around 10 a.m. when the dog ran toward the idling truck.

The dog ran underneath the garbage truck and Haeflinger went to reach for it, but slipped under the truck and was run over, according to a man who witnessed the accident as he was coming home from work.

"Slipped"? How does one "slip" under a truck? Sounds more like she was reaching under the truck, and the driver reacted like a typical conditioned motorist, and pulled out at that moment just to terrorize her. No charges have been filed (of course), and the Sanitation Department wouldn't talk to reporters.

The double-decker tour bus driver who slammed into another bus and injured 14 people in Times Square on Aug. 5 while allegedly high on drugs has had his driver's license and vehicle registration suspended a combined 20 times, officials said. (NYP)

From CBS New York, Aug. 11:

HAWTHORNE, N.J. — A driver has been arrested in connection with a crash that killed a woman and injured two others at a farmers market in northern New Jersey.James Woetzel, 48, has been charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident which resulted in death, authorities said Monday. Bail was set at $200,000.

Around 2:12 p.m. Sunday, authorities said Woetzel drove his pickup truck through a barricade and hit three people, including a woman who was dragged three blocks.

"I heard the truck coming through the barricades, I heard crashing and I heard screaming," vendor Jamie Borelli said.

"I ran after the car screaming, 'stop, stop, stop' because there was a person under the car," said witness Blythe Roth.

The woman, who has been identified as 58-year-old Donna Wine, was pronounced dead at the scene.

"It's unthinkable you can drag someone so far and not realize you've done something," Hawthorne Mayor Richard Goldberg said.

From AP, Sept. 28:

Police say two pedestrians have been killed in separate incidents in New York City.

Authorities say a 26-year-old man was hit by a livery car as he was trying to cross Pelham Parkway near White Plains Road in the Bronx around 1 a.m. Sunday. The driver remained at the scene. The pedestrian was then hit by a second livery car that left the scene. The man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday, a 33-year-old man crossing Fifth Avenue between 15th and 16th streets in Manhattan was hit by a sedan, which left the scene. The man, identified as Doohee Cho, was also pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

The Bronx victim has not been identified. There have been no arrests.

Big ups to WNYC for running this compelling account of the family of Queens rapper Asif Rahman, struggling with his senseless death, but nowhere does it mention the rather critical fact that he was riding a bicycle when he was run down by a truck four years ago... See the page on the incident at Ghost Bikes...

In an advance for Mayor Bill de Blasio's "Vision Zero" program, the NY City Counicl voted to lower the speed limit on streets (other than highways and parkways) from 30 to 25 mph. (Daily News, Oct. 7) Like 100 SUVs at the bottom of the East River, we'd call this... a good start.

From The Villager, Oct. 16:

Car kills elderly woman on Canal St.
On Tues., Oct. 14, at 4:08 a.m., police responded to a 911 call of a motor vehicle accident involving a pedestrian near the intersection of Canal and Elizabeth Sts.

Upon arrival, officers observed an unidentified elderly female, unconscious and unresponsive, lying on Canal St. E.M.S. medics responded to the location and transported the woman to New York Downtown Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Further investigation revealed the pedestrian had been walking northbound on Elizabeth St., crossing Canal St., when she struck by a gray 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee, traveling westbound on Canal St. and operated by a male, 64.

The driver remained on the scene. There were no arrests. The investigation is ongoing.

Edgar Torres of Queens had the right of way Oct. 30—walking in a crosswalk, with a green light—when he became the fourth pedestrian to be fatally struck by an MTA bus driver in the last two months. The "accident" (sic) occurred at the same intersection in Ridgewood where a city bus driver killed pedestrian Ella Bandes in 2013. (StreetsBlog, Oct. 31)

From a Nov. 13 report in The Villager on NYC Councilmember Margaret Chin's call for a study on traffic fatalities along Canal Street:

Motor vehicles struck and killed three elderly residents crossing local streets within crosswalks between Aug. 28 and Oct. 14 of this year. Details are less clear in the death of a 59-year-old Canadian man who was struck at an unknown location along Canal St. on Oct. 30 by a private sanitation truck, which continued moving until stopping at the intersection at Centre St...

According to data compiled by nyc.crashmapper.com, there were 267 traffic collisions at the intersection of Canal and Bowery between August 2011 and February of this year. Further west, 110 such incidents occurred at Canal and West Broadway during the same period. More than two collisions per month occurred at the intersection where Sau Ying Lee, 90, died on Oct. 14 just steps from the curb at Elizabeth and Canal Sts.

"Legally, my mom had the right of way when she crossed the street," said Michael Cheung, Lee's son, who added his opinion that the driver lied when telling investigators that he could not see Lee.

The driver of the SUV that killed his mother faces no charges, though that and the other incidents remain under investigation, according to Chin, who said she recently discussed the matter with the District Attorney's Office. She and others have called for criminal charges against that driver, as well as those who struck Shu Fan Huang, 82, on Aug. 28 and Sui Leung, also 82, on Sept. 25.

The purported lack of accountability on the part of drivers is a "disgrace," according to attorney Steve Vaccaro. He said that responsibility for pursuing such cases can fall by the wayside amid the city’s bureaucracy.

"There are plenty of laws on the books but they are not being enforced the way they should be," he said.

Unfortunately, that same issue contained a letter protesting "Bike anarchy on the streets," by one Ned Sublette...

A cultural shift among New Yorkers is needed in order to reduce aggressive driving, jaywalking and other dangerous behavior on the streets, they say.

Why is dangerous behavior by bicyclists never mentioned? You cannot walk down a block without seeing a bicyclist going the wrong way, riding on the sidewalk, riding without lights at night, riding with headphones on… .

The bicycle explosion has been a disaster for the elderly, the visually handicapped, the cognitively challenged, and anyone whose head doesn’t spin around 360 degrees.

A cultural shift among cyclists is needed — along with vigorous enforcement of existing laws about what bicyclists can and cannot do.

Sorry, Ned, but the bicycling "disaster" is not backed up by the facts. The problem is that the massive deaths caused by cars (209 in NYC so far this year, according to the Vision Zero website) are accepted as "normal," while the rare ones by bicycles are viewed as an insidious menace. We also refer you to ethicist Randy Cohen's excellent NY Times op-ed of Aug. 4, 2012, "If Kant Were a New York Cyclist," explaining why it is safer for all if cyclists are not bound by rules devised for motorists.

The Daily News reported Feb. 19: 

An ex-con was found guilty Thursday of killing a Brooklyn family in a horrific hit-and-run crash.

Julio Acevedo, 46, was convicted of reckless manslaughter and other charges for the March 2013 death of Nathan and Raizy Glauber, who was pregnant at the time of the accident, in a Williamsburg wreck.

OK, a start. But we wonder if the irrelevant fact that Acevedo is an "ex-con" didn't sway the jury (as if the "respectable" never commit this kind of crime). Ditto the fact that one of the victims was pregnant... We also object to the loaded word "crash." A more appropriate choice might be "assault."

A New Jersey Transit bus rear-ended a private bus carrying more than two dozen Canadian middle-school students in the Lincoln Tunnel June 10, leaving 31 people with minor injuries. (NBC New York)

On June 7, a five-year-old boy was hit by a car at a Brooklyn intersection near Prospect Park, mere feet from where 12-year-old Sammy Eckstein was killed in 2013. Roark Bennett , who apparently "ran out into the street against the light after straying from his family," was thrown two car lengths but suffered only minor injuries. "Cops said there was no criminality." (Daily News)

In a new study by Hunter College professors, students surveyed 50 randomly selected intersections in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. Of 4,379 drivers observed approaching lights that had already turned full red, 8.7%—nearly 1 in 10— ran the light. The majority of those who did not stop (4.4% of the total) drove straight through the light; others (2.6%) turned illegally on red; still others (1.7%) paused then continued through the red, treating it essentially as a stop sign. The observers only counted cars that entered the intersection after the light had already turned red. (CityLab, June 8)

A bicyclist was killed and three other people injured in what WABC is calling a "crash" this morning near the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn. Details:

Authorities say an SUV heading northbound on Flatbush Avenue crossed the double yellow line, went into the southbound lane and struck the southbound bicyclist.

The SUV then struck a Mitsubishi.

The bicyclist, a man in his 30s who was not carrying any identification, was pronounced dead at the scene...

[A witness] says he saw the driver of a gray SUV initially hit a Toyota Camry that stopped at a red light at Dean Street and Fourth Avenue.

"Didn't even hit his brakes, just went boom..."

After smashing into the back of the Camry, witnesses say the driver backed up, went around the Camry then drove into oncoming traffic and kept speeding up the block, hitting the bicyclist near Atlantic Avenue.

"His body went up in the air and it looked like it rolled on top of the vehicle," Weaver said.

But he says the driver kept on going with the man on his hood, striking a black car before crashing again. Bicycle parts could still be seen stuck in the wheel.

Do we ever hate that bogus word "crash," which implies two objects of similar bulk accidentally hitting each other. This wasn't a "crash," this was a hapless bicyclist being mowed down by an SUV.

Another one from today's Daily News:

Queens dad and 2 kids killed in car crash caused by drunken driver on Long Island
A Queens mother desperately tried to save her daughter from the family’s burning car moments after they were slammed by a drunken hit-and-run driver on Long Island early Sunday, friends said.

"She's been saying it all day: 'I tried to open the door for Sephora, and I couldn’t get her out,'" family friend Sonia Michel said of grieving Lucnie Bouaz-Ostane.

Bouaz-Ostane tragically was also unable to rescue her husband and son. The mom was in the front passenger seat when a 2008 BMW slammed her family’s Toyota on the Southern State Parkway in Bay Shore at 1:30 a.m., cops said.

Her husband, Ancio Ostane, 37, and their two children, Andy, 8, and Sephora, 4, were fatally trapped in the burning vehicle, police said.

The St. Albans family was returning from a gathering with relatives when the crash occurred.

Cops charged O’Neil Sharpe, 24, with DWI and leaving the scene of an accident.

So the "crash" (as if it were just an inevitable accident) "occurred" (as if it were a random act of God, like someone getting struck by lightning). 

WHEN WILL THIS CHANGE? WHEN, LORD, WHEN?

Queens Courier reports that the corner of Main Street and Cherry Avenue in Flushing will be known as Allison Hope Liao Way after Allison Liao, the 3-year-old girl who was fatally run down by a motorist on Oct. 13, 2013, while crossing the street with her grandmother. (Her kin are among the founders of Families for Safe Streets, cited above.) Alas, the Courier account commits the sematic sins that implicitly legitimize this kind of carnage. Allison Liao was not (as the photo caption has it) an "accident" victim. Nor (as the headline has it) a "crash" victim. Call it what it is: deadly assault, normalized under a political system in which motorists have a de facto license to kill.

From Streestblog, Oct. 29:

A bereaved family has done what NYPD, city district attorneys, and the New York State DMV usually fail to do: impose meaningful sanctions against a reckless driver, who in this case took the life of 3-year-old Allison Liao.

Ahmad Abu-Zayedeh failed to yield the right of way when he struck Allison as she walked hand in hand with her grandmother across Main Street in Flushing on October 6, 2013. The DMV found Abu-Zayedeh at fault for the crash, but revoked his license for just 30 days.

NYPD summonsed Abu-Zayedeh for failure to yield and careless driving, but filed no criminal charges. The DMV later threw out the tickets. The chief vehicular crimes prosecutor for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, Charles A. Testagrossa, wrote off the crash as a blameless "accident," and said Abu-Zayedeh was proceeding with a green light. In stories that are still online in their original form, the press falsely reported that Allison "broke free" from her grandmother, implying the victims were at fault.

As is common when drivers injure and kill people in NYC, civil court was the victims' only available venue to hold the motorist accountable. This month, Allison’s parents, Amy Tam and Hsi-Pei Liao, settled a suit with Abu-Zayedeh. Under the terms of the settlement, Abu-Zayedeh surrendered 75% of his net worth, acknowledged complete responsibility for the crash, and signed a notarized agreement to not drive or apply for a license for five years.