MTA Bus Driver Runs Over 15-Year-Old Girl in Brooklyn Crosswalk [Updated]
Update: NYPD told Streetsblog the bus driver involved in this crash was arrested and charges are pending. Transportation Alternatives tweeted that, according to police, he was charged under the Right of Way law.
An MTA bus driver ran over a teenage girl in a Brooklyn crosswalk this morning.
The 15-year-old victim was walking north across Grand Street at around 8:45 when the Q59 driver, southbound on Union Avenue, struck her while turning left onto Grand, according to NYPD and DNAinfo.
Video from a nearby bodega's camera shows the bus swinging around the corner just as the girl steps into the crosswalk, hitting her and then dragging her out of the frame.
“Oh my God, the lady was crossing the street. He did not see the lady. The people in the street were screaming,” said Jose Aguilar, 48, who owns nearby Grand Gourmet Deli.
"I saw the girl crossing the street. The bus came in fast," said Aguilar's worker, El Mehdi Ouafiq.
He said a woman stayed with the girl when she couldn't pull her from under the tire.
A video Ouafiq shot shows the girl's bright green shoes poking out from beneath the bus' large wheel while a group of people huddle around her trying to help.
The Daily News reported that the victim “was pinned under the left front wheel.”
A spokesperson with the NYPD public information office said the victim suffered a severe leg injury. Reports on social media that the victim died were not true, the spokesperson said, but she had no further information. A tweet for confirmation on the victim's condition to the Highway Department, which investigates traffic crashes, got no response.
If the crash occurred as described and the bus driver failed to yield, he could be subject to a charge under the city's Right of Way law. Of the 18 MTA bus drivers who have killed pedestrians or cyclists in the last two years, 12 were making turns, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. Last December the MTA said it planned to equip buses with external audible alarms to warn people on the street when a bus driver is turning, as well as a collision avoidance system to alert bus drivers to nearby vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists.
A Streetsblog request to the MTA for information on the crash was unanswered as of this writing.
Update: Here is what we received from the MTA, in full:
At 8:457 a.m., Q59 making left turn struck female pedestrian at Grand St. and Union Av. She is in critical/stable condition with injury to left leg. BO was taken to hospital for trauma.
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