Elderly Pedestrian Killed Crossing Ocean Parkway

A four-sentence AP squib reports a Wednesday night pedestrian death:

A New York City man has been killed in a hit-and-run outside his home.

Police say 67-year-old Juan Sifuentes was struck by a dark-colored car while trying to cross Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn.

The victim was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital following the accident late Wednesday.

Police are investigating.

Naturally, though the driver kept going and no one knows who s/he is or what led to the crash, the AP has decided that Juan Sifuentes died by "accident."

Sifuentes is the second pedestrian reported killed in the city this week, following the Sunday massacre of young dad Miguel Colon at the hands of road-raging psycho Mark St. Pierre in the Bronx.

If anyone knows of additional coverage of last night’s crash, please link from the comments.

  • Brooklyn

    I’m curious where on Ocean Parkway. That road has well-timed 25mph lights, as well as the only working traffic cameras in the borough, I believe.

    I’m going to guess racing on the service road. Parked cars on both sides and one traffic lane barely wider than your door handles.

  • MisterBadExample

    I’m not surprised. Ocean Parkway is populated by drivers who try to get ahead of traffic flow–I’ve driven on it and been passed by cars going 50-60 mph. The lights are also not timed to help out elderly or disabled people trying to cross. Finally, the cars making left turns do so at their peril, and pedestrians are frequently in the path of drivers trying to make a quick left turn.
    Again, I’d like to know where this happened. Drivers seem to get a bit more lead-footed approaching the Belt Parkway turnoff.

  • Sarah Goodyear

    Gothamist Newsmap shows a fatal hit and run at Ocean Parkway and Ditmas Ave last night at 11pm. http://gothamist.com/map/

  • J

    Driving south on Ocean Parkway last night around 11:30pm, I was diverted at Cortelyou — the incident happened between there and Ditmas.

  • J

    @ MisterBadExample:

    I’ve also experienced the high speed (though usually I find traffic moves at 35-40), but I’ve also seen some pedestrians do some phenomenally stupid shit crossing that road. I walk, cycle and drive on Ocean Parkway. The lights are actually quite adequate for pedestrian crossing and because of the greenway paths there are islands to stand on between the service road and main thoroughfare to break the trip up if you have to. The problem is that without a timer, if you start crossing in the middle of a green sequence, you really don’t know how long you have left (countdown timers seen in other cities rock!) — and on a handful of occasions I’ve seen elderly get stuck in the main throughfare(and younger people just screwing around and running for it) with the predictable cringeworthy Frogger-like results.

    The outh side path is a designated greenway for cyclists, but with all the traffic turning off in every direction plus cars blocking you after turning off the service road (stop sign) and being stopped in unmarked crosswalks by the light at the main thoroughfare, it can be pretty dicey.

    Definitely a lot going on there…

    Of course none of this sheds any light on the unknown particulars of this hit-and-run šŸ™

  • Melissa

    I was actually walking my dog and saw it happen unfortunately. It was between Ditmas and Cortelyou where my apt is. 8 lanes of traffic, in the dark, and pedestrian crossed in the middle of the block. The car that hit him could have very well been a car service car (no surprise). There is nothing ok about this. In other news, three weeks ago, I saw a guy kill himself by jumping off the roof of my building which is about 50 feet from this hit and run. So I’m pretty WTF about seeing so many dead bodies recently and ready to move to one of those boring square states in the middle of the country. I’m done.

  • Gretchen

    Melissa…today there was a huge digital sign at Ocean Parkway and Ditmas asking for witnesses to call TIPS. If you saw anything at all you should call.

  • Ricardo

    I was also driving south on Ocean Parkway @ 11:30 pm and was diverted to Cortelyou Rd. I didn’t know what was going with all the cops blocking off that section. I was pissed that people going north between Ditmas and Cortelyou on the service road was holding up traffic trying to see what was going on. I live a couple feet away where the accident happened and i was trying to get into my garage. As many us here are surprised how well the timing is on the lights for Ocean Parkway, you still get a handful of idiots who race especially those who want to make the left turn lights. I heard a lot accidents happen with those lights because of most of the traffic is on red, people tend to start crossing and forget that there’s that extra 30 seconds to for the drivers make that left turn light and alot of the times, drivers are going waaay to fast to try to make the light.
    I honestly think it could be some kids that hang out on the corner of Ocean Parkway where that accident occured. They tend to park their cars at the corner and sometimes take peel out as if they were in a race. I’m surprised nobody got clipped crossing the service road but that’s another story.

  • Ricardo

    I also saw that sign there when i came back from work this evening. Anyone know where the victim lived?

  • Melissa

    he lived on this block on OP.

    http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=6918363

    I actually got a call back this afternoon from a highway detective since they had my number from calling 911 last night. what’s more than a little upsetting is why the victim’s shoe is still in the middle of the road. really. detectives and cops were there again today taking measurements and pictures of everything (btw – there were no skid marks, never slowed down) News crews have been there and all acknowledge the shoe, yet no one gets rid of it.

  • s

    I had read this earlier today and was going to comment that most of these happen when people cross the street in the middle at night and are unseen. Most of the deaths on Queens Blvd- the highway of death- were caused by people crossing in the middle and cars doing above the limit. the way the PD stopped them there was fencing the middle of the blocks to make it hard to cross. This of course doesn’t mean the death wasn’t tragic of course it is. The PD is clearly doing all it can to find who did and what happened. I am sure there are some cameras on the street and they will have a picture of the car/van shortly….

  • E

    THE GUYS SHOE IS STILL IN THE TURN LANE. I LIVE INA A 30 STORY BUILDING WHERE A GUY CRACHHEAD JUMPED OFF THE ROOF AND DIED.THE GUY J WALKED AND WAS DRUNK, HIS FAULT FOR DEATH, DRIVER SHULDVE NEVER RAN. IT HAPPEND BETWEEN DITMAS AND CORTELYOU ROAD.

  • girlacross

    Melissa, my girlfriend also saw the guy jump from your building. He unfortunately landed only about four feet from her and got the gruesomest scare of her life. I was just thinking after I saw the huge digital sign on the parkway that it’s been a bad couple of weeks for the block between Ditmas and Cortelyou.

  • NOT ELDERLY

    Since when is a 57 year old elderly? He was certainly old enough to know not to cross Ocean Parkway mid block and I would assume at 57 far from senile. If it was midblock, the driver is certainly not to blame.

  • Melissa

    yeah, it hasn’t been a superawesome month around here. i’m sure it was the scare of your gf’s life; it certainly was mine. if i was a less logical person, I would be packing my crap and vacating asap. the only thing the two have in common is that both victims made horrible last decisions.

    and that stupid shoe is still there. i see it from my window. ugh.

  • Steven O’Neill

    Actually, S, police reports from pedestrian deaths in NYC were studied in 1999. It was found that drivers are at fault in almost 90% of pedestrian deaths.

    http://www.rightofway.org/research/kba_text.pdf

    (see page 12 for the summary of findings)

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