One Neighborhood, One Day, Three Kids Injured By Drivers

Three pre-teens — two on foot, one on a kick scooter — were injured in separate crashes within a four-hour period in South Williamsburg on Friday at the approach of the Jewish sabbath, a frenetic period before all work ends for the period of rest.

According to police, the first crash was at around 1:30 p.m. when a 61-year-old man, driving a Toyota struck a 9-year-old boy crossing Division Avenue at Lee Avenue. The boy was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition with what cops called “minor injuries.”

News12 reported that the crash was steps away from a preschool and the Sobel Playground. The outlet quoted a local resident complaining of a lack of a crosswalk.

“Sometimes the cars that come through here speed,” Lillian Ilarraza told News12. “And it’s dangerous because the kids just cross like it’s nothing and they can’t see of a car is coming from that side.”

At 3 p.m. cops rushed to the intersection of Park Avenue and Walworth Street, where they found an 11-year-old boy with minor injuries. Police said he had been struck by a 51-year-old man who had been driving a 2018 Toyota. The boy was transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. 

And finally, at around 5:35 p.m., cops were called when a 25-year-old man struck a 12-year-old with his 2012 Toyota at the corner of Middleton Street and Marcy Avenue. By this time, traffic was heavy and the boy, who was flying down the sidewalk on his stand-up scooter, appeared to misread the traffic to conclude that he had the light, when he did not. He slammed into the Toyota and sustained what cops called “minor injuries.” Hez was taken to a very busy Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

A video, obtained by Williamsburg News, shows the boy crossing against a light, but it also shows the driver possibly speeding. In any event, the outlet blamed the kid:

South Williamsburg is one of the most dangerous places to be a pedestrian. Last year, for example, 78 pedestrians were injured in just the small segment of the neighborhood bounded roughly by Broadway, Park Avenue and Kent Avenue.

In a neighborhood with large family sizes, many of the injured are children. But neighborhood leaders have long fought efforts by the Department of Transportation to make roadways safer, even after a 10-year-old girl was killed by an impatient driver.

More recently, neighborhood leaders fought installation of a protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue, convincing the Adams administration to remove three blocks of it. The roadway has been less safe as a result.

Full information about the Friday crashes was not available because the NYPD’s elite Collision Investigation Squad only handles fatal crashes and a small number of very serious crashes. The CIS unit’s investigations provide information on crashes that inform DOT safety programs.

The last serious effort to expand the CIS unit’s budget to add more investigators and dig into more crashes failed during the de Blasio era.