A Flushing driver killed a pedestrian on Saturday, this time on dangerous Main Street, where disorder and chaos rule.
According to police, the pedestrian, who has not yet been identified because he did not have identification on him, was crossing mid-block between 59th and 60th avenues at around 4:30 a.m. when the 62-year-old driver of a gray 2013 Honda Accord slammed into him. The driver remained on the scene while the pedestrian was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital-Queens, where he died.
The NYPD Collision Investigation Squad did not issue a summons to the driver for failure to exercise due care, but a spokesman for the agency said the investigation is ongoing.
Flushing is a notoriously dangerous area for pedestrians. In 2018, eight walkers were injured in 80 crashes just on the five-block stretch of Main Street between Booth Memorial Avenue and the Long Island Expressway. In the entire 40th Assembly district, which mostly consists of Flushing alone, there were 3,107 crashes last year — roughly eight per day — that resulted in injures to 42 cyclists, 191 pedestrians and 462 motorists. Seven pedestrians died.
Those seven fatalities were the most of any neighborhood last year.
The neighborhood's City Council Member Peter Koo has done little, but Assembly Member Ron Kim, a rival in Flushing politics, called on the city to “explore all options, including the creations [sic] of pedestrian plazas" after a near-fatal collision on Roosevelt Avenue on Jan. 2.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson has also identified Flushing as an area sorely needing traffic calming and car-free zones.
