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Cyclist Killed By SUV Driver In The East Village
By
Sophia Chang
Published May 6, 2020
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By
Sophia Chang
Published May 6, 2020
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A driver parking an SUV in the East Village struck and killed a bicyclist on Tuesday morning.
According to the NYPD, a 72-year-old woman was biking on East 14th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A at around 10:15 a.m., heading south across the block, when the 33-year-old driver backed his 2019 Cadillac SUV into a parking space on the eastbound lane of East 14th Street and struck her.
The cyclist was taken to Bellevue Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Neither the driver or the victim have been identified by police. The driver remained at the scene, and the police investigation was ongoing.
The woman’s death is the third cyclist fatality this year. At this point in 2019—a historically deadly year for bicyclists in the city—eight cyclists had been killed by vehicles. There have been 26 people killed by drivers this year, compared to 40 people at this point last year.
After a spate of traffic fatalities in the first two months of 2020, pedestrian deaths have also declined since the city went on PAUSE during the coronavirus pandemic. Streetsblog has reported that total auto collisions are down by 77 percent since the pandemic shut down much of the city.
Traffic volumes in the region have dropped markedly—some estimates say as much as 80 to 90 percent. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a press release Tuesday that “total vehicular traffic across all Port Authority crossings in March 2020 decreased 27.7 percent compared to March 2019, with automobile traffic down 29.4 percent" (though truck traffic has only declined 2.5 percent).
But speeding by reckless drivers has skyrocketed. The city’s speed cameras, which are located in 750 zones around the city and are only operational from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, have issued more than double the number of tickets in March compared to January. There were 124,582 tickets issued in January this year, followed by 146,092 in February and 269,396 in March.
Danny Harris, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, released a statement on Wednesday saying that “large vehicles, like the Cadillac SUV involved in Tuesday’s crash, are disproportionately responsible for the deaths and serious injuries on our streets."
"Of the cyclists who died in 2019, 45 percent were killed by drivers operating trucks and SUVs. In 2020, all three of the cyclists killed to date were struck by drivers operating trucks or SUVs," Harris said. "There is an enormous responsibility that comes with operating a vehicle weighing two to three tons, especially in a city filled with people, especially older adults, children and those with limited abilities.”
Tagged
street safety
vision zero
bicycle fatality
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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