- A 70-year-old driver and his 60-year-old passenger were involved in a fatal car accident in a Brooklyn parking lot after the driver suffered a medical episode.
- The car crashed through a concrete barrier and fence before falling 40 feet to the ground. The driver died, and the passenger was left with critical injuries.
- Traffic accidents have been on the rise in New York City in 2021, with 150 deaths and a 129% increase in hit-and-run incidents. Despite the city’s “Vision Zero” road safety plan, traffic accidents continue to be a major challenge.
Francois Cadely, a 70-year-old driver, was killed and his 60-year-old passenger seriously injured when the car they were in fell 40 feet from a McDonald’s restaurant parking lot into a Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) train lot yesterday in Brooklyn.
Apparently, Cadely lost control of his vehicle after suffering a medical episode, crashed into a concrete barrier, and flew off until landing on the LIRR lot yesterday around 12:41 p.m. on Vanderbilt Ave. near Pacific St. in Prospect Heights, just two blocks from the Barclays Center event site.
Cadely and his passenger were in an Audi Q5 in the parking lot of a McDonald’s establishment on Atlantic Ave. when the driver turned right when he unexpectedly suffered an unknown medical problem. The car continued to turn and ended up heading west before accelerating.
The speeding vehicle crashed through a concrete barrier and a fence lining the perimeter of the rail yard and plummeted 40 feet to the ground, NYPD said.
The Audi crashed to the ground on the driver’s side. Emergency responders pulled Cadely and the woman from the wrecked car and rushed them to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where the driver died.
The woman remained in critical condition with extensive chest and back injuries Saturday, reported the Daily News, which published dramatic footage of the crash. Cadely lived in Canarsie, about six miles from where she crashed, police said. His relationship with the unidentified female passenger was not immediately clear.
This year has been grim on the New York tarmac in all five boroughs. From Jan. 1 to July 31, some 150 people died in traffic crashes, according to the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT). Particularly there is a 129% increase in hit-and-run incidents.
In addition to gun violence, traffic accidents are another major challenge for Mayor Eric Adams. This is despite “Vision Zero,” a road safety plan created in 2014 by then-new Mayor Bill de Blasio, who promised to make the city safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, with a goal of zero fatalities by 2024.
New York City had already experienced a 35% increase in traffic accidents in April, NYPD warned. By the end of that month, there was a tragic spate of an average of one person killed in a hit-and-run every day.