Twelve people died in New York City traffic in April, and 4,446 were injured, according to City Hall’s Vision Zero View crash data map.
City Hall reported 37 people killed by motorists while walking or biking through April, and 4,346 injured, compared to 39 deaths and 4,545 injuries in the first four months of 2017.
Two motor vehicle occupants died in the city in April, according to City Hall, and 3,475 were injured.
Seven pedestrians and three cyclists were fatally struck by drivers last month. Among the victims were Dorothy Parker, Juan Pacheco, Cellou Diallo, Carlos Vasquez, Leon Clark, and Giovanni Ampuero.
Motorists killed at least two children and two seniors: Cellou Diallo, 8; Giovanni Ampuero, 9; Dorothy Parker, 65; and Leon Clark, who was reportedly in his 70s. Traffic crashes consistently rank as the leading cause of injury related death for city children. Seniors in NYC are disproportionately vulnerable to traffic violence compared to people in other age groups.
Across the city, 691 pedestrians and 280 cyclists were reported hurt in collisions with motor vehicles. Per NYPD policy that has not changed since the 2014 launch of the Vision Zero program, few of these crashes were investigated by trained officers.
Of six fatal crashes on surface streets reported by Streetsblog and other outlets, one motorist was known to have been charged for causing a death.
Juan Jimenez, 86, hit Giovanni Ampuero and his mother with an SUV as he made a left turn into a Northern Boulevard crosswalk. Jimenez kept driving until he was stopped by a witness several blocks away. He was charged with felony leaving the scene and failing to yield. There is no upper age limit for driving in New York, and the state Department of Motor Vehicles offloads responsibility for gauging seniors' driving abilities to individuals and their families.
A woman trying to park a minivan ran over Cellou Diallo on a Bronx sidewalk after driving him home from school. No charges were filed.
City motorists killed five children age 14 or under through April of this year. There were three such fatalities in all of 2017.
A Sanitation Salvage employee identified as Sean Spence hit Leon Clark with a garbage truck months after Spence reportedly ran over and killed a co-worker while on the job. The de Blasio administration took no action to penalize Sanitation Salvage, which does business with the city, for its safety record. The company stopped Spence from driving trucks after Clark's death, but did so of its own accord. Witnesses said Spence was "going too fast" before he hit Clark. NYPD told the press the victim, who used a cane, was jaywalking and issued no charges or tickets.
A Manhattan driver opened the door of a minivan into the path of delivery cyclist Juan Pacheco, who died from injuries sustained in the crash. Dooring is illegal under state law, and has caused at least five NYC cyclist fatalities since 2012. NYPD ticketed the driver in just one of those cases. Police applied no penalty for Pacheco’s death.
Dorothy Parker and Carlos Vasquez were killed in separate crashes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, respectively, by drivers who fled the scene and were not immediately caught or identified. The majority of hit-and-run drivers who strike people in NYC are not held accountable in any way.
