A drugged-out electric bike rider struck two pedestrians in Brooklyn, critically wounding one, cops said — a rare crash involving a bike rider and a pedestrian.
According to police, the e-bike rider, Justin Giaquinto, 50, was traveling along 19th Avenue in Bensonhurst at around 6:10 p.m. on Friday night when he struck two women — a 43-year-old and a 45-year old — at 76th Street. The younger woman suffered head trauma and was taken to Maimonides Hospital in critical condition, while the older woman suffered an injured arm and was at the same hospital in stable condition.
Giaquinto, who lives nearby on Bay 19th Street, remained on the scene, but was arrested for "criminal possession of a controlled substance," though police did not provide any more details.
Crashes between electric bike riders and pedestrians are extremely rare, despite public perception of their frequency. Despite much fear-mongering by anti-bike politicians, city data show that from Jan. 1 through June 25, 2021, there were 3,101 crashes that resulted in an injury to a pedestrian. Of those crashes, 2,870, or 93 percent, were caused by the driver of a truck, van, SUV, car or other four-plus-wheeled motor vehicle. Only 132 crashes — or 4 percent — were caused by the users of e-bikes, e-scooters, mopeds or motorscooters (plus all the other words that cops use to classify two-wheeled motored vehicles).
Pedestrian fatalities under the wheels of a bike are even rarer; between 2006, when the Department of Transportation began tracking bike-on-pedestrian deaths, and the end of 2020, 10 wakers were killed by cyclists. Over the same 15-year period, 2,116 people — or 99.53 percent of pedestrian victims — were struck and killed by car drivers.
