Bicycle Safety

One Intersection, Two Injured Pedestrians, One Summons

On November 24, a woman and an 11-year-old girl were hit by different vehicles at the same Brooklyn intersection -- Liberty Avenue at Crescent Street -- in the space of 90 minutes. Both victims were injured; the girl, who was hit by a cement truck, was hospitalized.

By Brad Aaron

2:17 PM EST on December 4, 2007

On November 24, a woman and an 11-year-old girl were hit by different vehicles at the same Brooklyn intersection — Liberty Avenue at Crescent Street — in the space of 90 minutes. Both victims were injured; the girl, who was hit by a cement truck, was hospitalized.

Though the woman, according to reports, was crossing with the light, only the truck driver who hit the girl received a summons, for failure to yield to a pedestrian. Neither Liberty nor Crescent is a truck route.

The driver who “tapped” the woman, knocking her unconscious, received no citation or charge of any kind. Both crashes occurred in the middle of the day.

Liberty Avenue has seen dozens of pedestrian and cyclist injuries over the last decade, with 19 crashes at the Crescent Street intersection from 1995 to 2005, according to Transportation Alternatives’ CrashStat. That intersection is in close proximity to Conduit Boulevard, where seven pedestrians died during the same period.

Brad Aaron

Brad Aaron began writing for Streetsblog in 2007, after years as a reporter, editor, and publisher in the alternative weekly business. Brad adopted New York's dysfunctional traffic justice system as his primary beat for Streetsblog. He lives in Manhattan.