TURN FOR THE WORSE

This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated January 28, 2022

First responders tended to a 15-year-old who had been crossing the street in a crosswalk with the right of way when the driver of a bus struck them while making a right turn. This was the description of two separate incidents, four days apart, in Southern Brooklyn recently.

On the morning of Monday, January 17, 15-year-old Antonina Zatulovska was killed at the intersection of Avenue P and Bedford Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. Distressing video captured the moment the driver of a yellow school bus turned off Avenue P and into the crosswalk where she was walking, knocking her down near the rear tire and then rolling over her body. The driver drove off but was later arrested.

Five days after that horrific incident, a 15-year-old boy was struck and critically injured by an MTA express bus driver on the morning of Saturday, January 22 in Bay Ridge at the intersection of Third Avenue and Marine Avenue. Once again, the boy was in the crosswalk with the right of way when the driver made a right turn and hit him. The boy suffered extremely serious injuries and was fighting for his life in NYU Langone Hospital.

Two days later, on the morning of Monday, January 24, two women were struck and killed by drivers who were turning in separate incidents in Manhattan. 51-year-old Udeshi Sundeep was killed on the Upper East Side while using the crosswalk with the right of way, while 43-year-old Beatriz Diaz of Crown Heights died in the same manner across town on the Upper West side. These pedestrian fatalities brought the 2022 total to 15, 36% more year-to-date than in 2021, which set a record for pedestrian deaths.

Stepping off the curb and into a crosswalk when the illuminated white pictogram on the pedestrian signal indicates it is safe to cross the street, should not come with such a risk of serious injury or death. We do not need to accept this as our way of life. Greater effort must be devoted to getting drivers to slow down and to make sure they yield to pedestrians, particularly when making turns.

“These accounts of a pedestrian casually walking in a crosswalk with the right of way and being struck by a driver who is making a turn in their vehicle are far too common and far too often result in an irreversible tragedy.”

During the same week that two 15-year-olds were struck by buses in Brooklyn, leaving one dead and the other in critical condition, new City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams spouted misinformation about speed cameras in a radio interview. Adams agreed with a caller’s untrue contentions that speed cameras are not effective and are purely intended as a money-making scam. The reality is that eight in ten drivers who receive a speed camera ticket, do not receive another. Adams also stated that speed cameras are “not necessarily around school zones and we’re gonna take a look at that also,” despite the fact that all speed cameras are within 0.25 miles of a school, as required by state law.

It is not known if speed played a role in any of the recent pedestrian deaths where a driver turning their vehicle hit a person in a crosswalk, but even when slowing to turn, drivers who speed up as they approach an intersection significantly shorten the time they have to check for pedestrians either in the crosswalk or about to step off the curb and enter it. We need to continue to use every effective tool at our disposal to reduce speeding and make streets safer for those on foot.

In addition to slowing vehicles down, we need drivers to ensure they yield to pedestrians. These accounts of a pedestrian casually walking in a crosswalk with the right of way and being struck by a driver making a turn are far too common and far too often result in an irreversible tragedy.

The school bus driver who was arrested for running over and killing Antonina Zatulovska, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to use due care. These offenses are tickets, each carrying a maximum $750 fine and up to 15 days in jail. The Zatulovska family is distraught, yet the consequences for the man whose extreme negligence took their daughter from them amounts to a slap on the wrist. Accidents happen when driving, but severe carelessness or recklessness, especially when it takes a life, needs to have penalties that are commensurate with the offense.