A 75-year-old woman was fatally struck while crossing a street in Brooklyn yesterday, just hours after a man on a scooter was also killed by a driver in that New York borough.
Amelia Grant was walking in the crosswalk at St. John’s Place when she was struck by a truck heading northbound on Utica Avenue in the Crown Heights neighborhood shortly after 2 p.m. Wednesday. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
The unmarked truck did not stop at first, but driver David Chacha, 41, returned to the scene and was taken into custody. He was charged today with aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle, ABC News reported.
The truck belongs to Kingsland Block & Masonry and had six tickets for violations totaling nearly $600, Patch.com noted.
Earlier yesterday, a man aboard a motor scooter was fatally struck by a pick-up truck in the Williamsburg neighborhood around 5:30 a.m.
This year has been a grim one on New York’s asphalt in all five boroughs. From Jan. 1 to July 31, some 150 people were killed 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.