Hit-and-Run Driver Kills Cyclist Jeremy Morales at Nostrand and Church Avenues in Brooklyn

1:31 PM EDT on October 2, 2017

Jeremy Morales, shown in the white circle, was killed in Brooklyn by a driver who did not stop. Image via WCBS

A speeding motorist killed a man riding a bike in Brooklyn and fled the scene on Saturday morning. The crash happened at the intersection of Nostrand and Church avenues, two streets DOT has singled out for Vision Zero safety upgrades.

Jeremy Morales was riding west on Church at around 8:30 a.m. when he was hit by the driver of an Infiniti coupe, who was southbound on Nostrand.

Surveillance video showed the driver enter the intersection without slowing. “The guy didn’t stop,” witness Hugh Camp told WCBS. “He didn’t think about stopping.”

Media reports said Morales was thrown half a block.

“A gentleman was driving the bike and the driver was very fast,” another witness told the Post. “He hit him. He flew like 30 feet in the air. … I ran over. He never moved.”

Morales was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital.

Images released by NYPD showed the car with major windshield damage after the collision. Police said the driver had at least one passenger. There were no arrests as of this afternoon, an NYPD spokesperson told Streetsblog.

Nostrand Avenue is one of the most dangerous streets in Brooklyn, with the same rate of severe pedestrian injuries and deaths per mile as Flatbush Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, and Avenue R, according to DOT. Church Avenue is also on the list of 49 Brooklyn streets DOT has selected for traffic-calming treatments.

No Vision Zero improvements are planned for the intersection of Nostrand and Church, indicative of the insufficient resources the de Blasio administration has devoted to its Vision Zero street safety program.

Morales was at least the eighth person killed by a hit-and-run driver while biking or walking in NYC in 2017, according to crash data tracked by Streetsblog. Most NYC drivers who strike people and leave the scene are never penalized.

Jeremy Morales was killed in the 67th Precinct, where officers ticket around three speeding drivers a day, and in the City Council district represented by Mathieu Eugene.

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.

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