Two motorists collided at an intersection in Canarsie last night, sending a car onto the sidewalk where people were waiting for a bus.
Shaena Sinclair, 33, was killed. Her son, 6-year-old Jayvon Williams, was hospitalized in critical condition with a head injury. NYPD filed no charges and issued no tickets.
The victims were at the B17 stop at the corner of Remsen and Seaview avenues when the collision occurred, at around 9 p.m. NYPD told Gothamist a 21-year-old man, traveling east on Seaview in a Honda sedan, was turning left when the passenger side of his vehicle was hit by a 61-year-old man, who was westbound on Seaview in a Toyota SUV. The Honda driver then jumped the curb and struck the victims at the northwest corner of the intersection, NYPD said.
“They tried to avoid each other and they hit,” witness Michael Thomas told WCBS. “They pinned the lady and the young boy up against the fence.”
Sinclair was pronounced dead at Brookdale Hospital.
Sinclair’s mother, Claudette Edwards, told the Post she grabbed her grandson and tried to get him out of the driver’s path.
Video from the scene showed heavy damage to both vehicles, with the front end of the Honda completely destroyed, indicating high-speed impact.
NYPD told WCBS that investigators "do not believe speed was a factor." Given the severity of the collision, that seems highly unlikely.
The 11-block stretch of Seaview Avenue that borders Canarsie Park, from Paerdegat Avenue North to East 93rd Street, sees a dozen or more traffic injuries in an average year, according to city data.
"They use this block as a speedway," Thomas told WABC. "When that light turns green it's like a raceway. The Department of Transportation has to do something, we have to get speed cameras or we've got to get speed bumps to prevent stuff like this from happening again."
NYC's speed camera program is set to expire this year, due to an arbitrary sunset provision imposed by Albany lawmakers. With this year's legislative session winding down, the State Senate is holding up a bill that would continue the program and increase the number of cameras that may be deployed to protect New Yorkers from speeding drivers.
"If the driver who set this deadly crash in motion were traveling at a safe speed, Shaena Sinclair would still be alive," said Paul White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, in a statement. "Clearly we're not doing enough to curb speeding -- which increases both the likelihood and severity of crashes."
Even if neither driver was speeding, at least one of them is culpable for the crash that ended Shaena Sinclair's life. Yet NYPD has so far declined to hold either motorist accountable in any way.
This fatal collision occurred in the 69th Precinct, where officers ticket between one and two speeding drivers a day, and in the City Council district represented by Alan Maisel.
