New York City street safety advocates staged a "die-in" outside City Hall on Aug. 26, demanding that the city take action amid a spike in bicyclist and pedestrian deaths. Transportation Alternatives [6] and Families for Safe Streets [7] are calling for a plan to protect New Yorkers from reckless motorists. The protest was called after four people were killed in hit-and-run "collisions" (sic [8]) in the span of five days, three of them on bikes.
Two cyclists were killed Aug. 18. Angelo Camara, a father of five, was killed [10] in the Bronx when a BMW sped through a red light and caused a chain-reaction collision. That same day, Paulina Tee Choc was struck and killed [11] by a pick-up truck as she rode through Brooklyn. On Aug. 20, Mamadou Diallo was likewise riding his bike in Brooklyn when he was killed [12] by a BMW. And on Aug. 23, pedestrian Destiny Murrell, just 22, was killed [13] as she crossed Washington Place in the West Village. In all cases, the motorists fled the scene. (amNY [14])
Advocates say [15] Mayor Zohran Mamdani [16] has a "Vision Zero crisis," a reference to the city's Vision Zero [17] policy for reducing traffic deaths. Mamdani has been criticized for gestures such as giving out bicycle helmets, dismissed as "turning a collective problem into an individual one." (Gothamist [18], Streetsblog [19])
In related news...
Three young men were killed in a high-speed collision on Brooklyn's Belt Parkway Aug. 25. (amNY [20])
Police are searching for a US Postal Service truck driver after a 66-year-old man was struck and killed in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen area on Aug. 8. The man proved to be Chet Mazur [21], a longtime icon [22] of the downtown punk rock scene. (ABC7 [23], Daily News [24], W42St [25])
An unnamed 49-year-old woman riding an electric scooter was killed when she was struck by a Tesla on Amsterdam Ave. July 30. (W42St [26])
On May 25, Memorial Day, Cara Trager, 71, was killed in a chain-reaction crash as she crossed Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens on foot with her husband. The husband was injured but survived. The motorist evidently at fault, Dawood Faisal, attempted to flee his Prius on foot after the collision, and reportedly tried to use a tree branch as a weapon against good Samaritans who tackled him until police arrived. He was indicted [27] for manslaughter. It was only later that the Trager family learned Faisal was also wanted [28] on hate crime charges in connection with a vandalism attack on a kosher bagel shop in Fresh Meadows. [28] (QNS [29], amNY [30])
See our last report in the ongoing automotive terror [31] in New York City.
