This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated April 24, 2023
This column was supposed to be about something totally different. I had planned to cover a topic that focused on an important issue, but then shortly before I was set to write it, something happened right in front of me related to the topic I wrote about last week, and which I have written about in this space more than any other: traffic violence.
Last week, I covered some much needed traffic safety legislation that many have been pushing for to be included in the overdue state budget that seemed to be nearing finalization. On Saturday, April 22, after having spent the day volunteering at an Earth Day park clean-up and beautification organized by Bay Ridge Cares and the Bay Ridge Environmental Group at John Paul Jones Park, my family and I witnessed an act of extreme traffic violence.
My wife, children, and I were eating a meal outdoors in a dining shed set up in the parking lane of Third Avenue in Bay Ridge when he heard a vehicle approaching at high speed. As it sped by, a few feet away, I got up to see a black SUV traveling extremely fast with a man hanging from the outside of the driver’s door, being dragged.
I immediately sprinted after the vehicle, expecting the man to fall free from the vehicle soon and be injured. However, he did not disengage from the SUV for two more blocks, where he then lay in a crosswalk at 86th Street. A woman I spoke to shortly after, who also relayed this information to officers, explained that she witnessed the beginning of the incident, where the driver first began to drag the victim at 92nd Street, six blocks away.
As I was running after the speeding SUV and the victim continued to be dragged, I worried a terribly tragic outcome was about to unfold. Another vehicle passed me as I saw the man being dragged finally come free, and tumble along the asphalt. I arrived a few seconds later and a man and woman from the vehicle that just passed me were out and tending to the victim. They were his wife and brother.
At the time this was written, I only know what I had witnessed and heard from others at the scene. The victim had many visible lacerations and was complaining about his legs. He was dragged for about six blocks at a very high rate of speed. His brother told EMS that the vehicle ran over his legs.
As the victim was being loaded into the ambulance, officers received word on their radios that the aggressive driver had been apprehended nearby. Immediately after the ambulance left and the police officers drove off toward the apprehended driver, a sanitation worker pulled up in a DSNY SUV and asked about the victim, hoping he was okay. I updated him, and he then told me that he had encountered the driver who caused all of this and was able to pull his DSNY vehicle alongside the aggressive driver’s in a way that prevented it from moving, at which point the sanitation worker flagged down cops.
My primary concern as I write this is for the victim. He had visible injuries, but given what he had been through, I initially feared he would look far worse, though the account of his legs being run over by a very large SUV were extremely concerning. I hope his injuries are not very serious and he makes a full recovery. I also hope his distraught wife and concerned brother are dealing with what was clearly a traumatic event.
The account I heard relayed to police at the scene, as to what had precipitated this, claimed that the driver of the black SUV was driving aggressively and tried to pass the vehicle the victim was in, at which point it side-swiped it. When the vehicles stopped and the victim got out and approached the aggressive driver, they argued, the aggressive driver hooked the arm of the victim, and then sped off, dragging him, as per that report.
We have a problem with speeding on our streets. We have a problem with aggressive drivers on our streets. We have a problem with people being badly injured or killed due to these problems. Please be extra attentive for these deadly factors when walking, cycling or driving. If you encounter someone speeding or driving aggressively, protect yourself and regardless of whether you are in the right, let them go and get as far away from you as possible.
