East Harlem

Questions About Truck Enforcement Linger After Amar Diarrassouba’s Death

It's been a week since truck driver Robert Carroll ran over and killed Amar Diarrassouba at First Avenue and 117th Street in East Harlem, and although NYPD says its crash investigation is complete, the department has so far failed to address major questions about the legality of the truck Carroll was driving.

By Stephen Miller

3:27 PM EST on March 7, 2013

It’s been a week since truck driver Robert Carroll ran over and killed Amar Diarrassouba at First Avenue and 117th Street in East Harlem, and although NYPD says its crash investigation is complete, the department has so far failed to address major questions about the legality of the truck Carroll was driving.

The company Carroll works for, McLane Trucking, may have sent a vehicle onto city streets that isn’t allowed anywhere in the city. The truck appears to be long enough to require an oversize permit to operate in NYC, but police have not said whether the vehicle was permitted. Carroll received only two summonses: failure to yield and failure to exercise due care.

The day after Scott Stringer demanded action from NYC DOT while letting NYPD and District Attorney Cy Vance off the hook, Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito sent letters to both DOT [PDF] and NYPD [PDF].

“It is my understanding that a truck this size is not even permitted to drive on our city’s local truck routes, much less a non-designated street like East 117th Street,” Mark-Viverito wrote to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. In the letter, she requested information about how crossing guards are assigned and enforcement data on truck driver behavior.

This morning Streetsblog sent inquiries to NYPD and DOT as to whether the vehicle has an oversize permit, and we have yet to receive replies. NYPD has also not responded to Streetsblog’s query about whether Carroll had NYC truck route maps in the cab and whether he was legally traveling on a non-designated route. (According to DOT’s website: “Trucks should only use non-designated routes when traveling between their origin/destination and a truck route.”)

Only very broad information about truck route enforcement is publicly available. Citywide, NYPD issued 6,458 tickets to drivers for truck route violations in 2012. (For comparison, police issued 95,866 tickets for tinted windows.) The 25th precinct, covering the area of East Harlem where Diarrassouba died, made truck route enforcement a bigger relative priority than the rest of the NYPD last year, issuing 275 truck route tickets.

Another enforcement issue raised by Diarrassouba’s death is the safety mirror loophole. The state law requiring crossover mirrors on large trucks, which allow drivers to see the blind spot in front of the cab, exempts vehicles registered out-of-state. McLane Trucking, the owner of the truck that crushed Diarrassouba, is based in Texas. NYPD and McLane have not responded to inquiries as to whether the truck is registered in New York.

NYPD said on Monday that its investigation is complete. But with all the unanswered questions about this case, the public is barely any wiser about what contributed to the death of Amar Diarrassouba and how future tragedies can be prevented.

Stephen Miller

In spring 2017, Stephen wrote for Streetsblog USA, covering the livable streets movement and transportation policy developments around the nation. From August 2012 to October 2015, he was a reporter for Streetsblog NYC, covering livable streets and transportation issues in the city and the region. After joining Streetsblog, he covered the tail end of the Bloomberg administration and the launch of Citi Bike. Since then, he covered mayoral elections, the de Blasio administration's ongoing Vision Zero campaign, and New York City's ever-evolving street safety and livable streets movements.