This driver lived up to his vanity plate.
Late on Tuesday night, the driver of a Dodge Ram pickup with the gruesome license plate NDRTAKER — and a long record of speeding – struck and killed a Dyker Heights resident at the intersection of Bay Ridge and 13th avenues, but was not charged, cops said.
According to police, the 72-year-old driver, whose name has not been released, had just turned left onto eastbound on Bay Ridge Avenue from southbound 13th Avenue at around 8:10 p.m. on a cold night after a snowstorm when he struck and killed Xiaohong Chen, 52.
But a witness on the scene gave more details to Streetsblog, saying that the driver of the pickup truck swerved around another car that had stopped at a red light on 13th Avenue, then made the illegal turn into Chen, who became lodged under the pickup.
The driver remained at the scene and was not arrested or charged. FreedomNewsTV snapped a picture of the pickup truck, with the violent vanity plate. According to city records, the truck has been nabbed by speed cameras 27 times since 2018 — and seven times last year. But speed camera tickets do not count against a driver's record, so this driver's license was not suspended or revoked. All his or her tickets appear to have been paid, making it impossible for the city to boot or tow the car.
At least four pedestrians have already been killed this year, according to city records. Between Jan. 1 and Jan 12 this year — just 12 days — the same records show that there have been 2,537 reported crashes, or 211 per day, in the city. Those crashes have injured 1,349 people.
Last year, more than 100 pedestrians were killed and more than 9,000 were injured by drivers.
It was not immediately clear if the NDRTAKER vanity plate refers to the driver's profession, his recklessness behind the wheel or his admiration for the retired professional wrestler Mark Callaway.
On Wednesday morning, Council Member Justin Brannan said he had "more questions than answers" about the crash.
"How fast was the car going when making the left turn?" he asked. "The answer will not bring our neighbor back, but they absolutely matter, especially after learning this driver has [so many] school zone speed camera violations!"
