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Cyclist Killed Near Rockaway Beach, Second Bike Fatality This Week

A motorist hit and killed 70-year-old cyclist Andrzei Wiesniuk near Rockaway Beach last night, according to a report in the Daily News. The driver, Jonathan Rincon, was arrested for driving with a suspended license.

By Noah Kazis

6:24 PM EDT on August 3, 2011

Wiesniuk was riding north on Cross Bay Parkway near Beach Channel Drive, the News reported, when he turned to try and cross into the southbound bike lane.

Wiesniuk is the fourth cyclist killed in a traffic crash in the past month and the second this week. In addition to the unidentified cyclist killed by a truck driver in East Williamsburg on Monday, Marilyn Dershowitz was killed by a mail truck as she tried to reach the Hudson River Greenway, and Ray Deter was killed on Canal Street by a Jaguar driver in possession of marijuana. In none of those three crashes did law enforcement bring any serious charges against the motorists.

Even before news of Wiesniuk’s death had been reported, traffic safety advocates had noted the harrowing number of cyclists killed in such a short time. “These tragic deaths might have been prevented if these streets had safe space for everyone,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “Streets with bike lanes see 40 percent fewer crashes ending in death or serious injury.”

Noah Kazis

Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.

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