Unlicensed Driver Kills Abrehet Hagos on Broadway in Washington Heights

A woman allegedly driving without a valid license stuck and killed a man in Washington Heights last weekend.

Abrehet Hagos, 50, was walking at the intersection of Broadway and W. 180th Street on Sunday when 24-year-old Kyara DeJesus hit him with a 2007 Mercedes, according to Patch and DNAinfo.

Hagos, who lived in the Bronx, sustained injuries to his head and torso and died at Harlem Hospital.

DeJesus, of Harlem, was charged with aggravated unlicensed operation, a low level misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 30 days in a jail and a $500 fine -- though actual penalties are rarely that severe, even in cases where an unlicensed driver kills someone. DeJesus was not charged for the act of taking Hagos’s life.

Broadway from Columbus Circle to the Broadway Bridge, which links Manhattan and the Bronx, is a Vision Zero priority corridor. Motorists killed 18 people walking along the corridor between 2009 and 2013, according to DOT, and there were 118 crashes that resulted in serious pedestrian injury or death during that period.

As in most of Washington Heights and Inwood, Broadway at W. 180th Street is often a chaotic mess, with no bike lanes and one through-lane in each direction generally occupied by double-parked vehicles. Upper Broadway was designated as an arterial slow zone in 2014, but the city relies mostly on police enforcement, which is historically not a priority for local precincts, to slow motorists down.

Officers from the 34th Precinct, where this crash occurred, had ticketed just 255 drivers for speeding this year as of October.

Abrehet Hagos was killed in the City Council district represented by transportation chair Ydanis Rodriguez.