NYPD Crash Investigations

For the second time in less than a week, a motorcyclist has struck and killed a NYC pedestrian.

All too often, a New York City driver jumps a curb, strikes a pedestrian (or 10), and is on his or her way without so much as a traffic ticket. If the motorist is a repeat drunk driver, or if the crash kills a teenager, it might grab the public's attention for a moment. But usually, victims are transported to the hospital, debris is swept away, and as far as police and prosecutors are concerned, all is forgotten. No investigation. No arrests. No summonses.

A senior was killed by a motorist in Bensonhurst this weekend, and a Prospect Heights pedestrian who was struck by an alleged drunk driver earlier this month has died from her injuries.

John Liu's office recently published a brief analysis of the newly-expanded NYPD Collision Investigation Squad. Liu has already proposed increasing the number of NYPD crash investigators, and now Doug Giuliano, senior policy analyst for the comptroller's office, has put up some more numbers that illustrate how woefully inadequate CIS staffing is.

While the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau looks into the death of Felix Coss, the school teacher who was struck and killed by an officer driving a police vehicle in Williamsburg, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has yet to launch his own investigation.

For the second time in less than a year, a cyclist has been killed by a motorist at the intersection of E. 108th Street and Park Avenue, in East Harlem.

A pedestrian and a cyclist are dead after a series of crashes in Brooklyn and the Bronx in which motorists also injured five other people. Three of the victims were teenagers. One crash left two young boys in critical condition. No charges are known to have been filed by NYPD or DAs Charles Hynes and Robert Johnson.

A DOT employee who crushed a Manhattan pedestrian with a dump truck and left the scene was not charged with a crime, was cleared of all traffic violations, and remains on the payroll.

Queens City Council Member Leroy Comrie is set to introduce a bill that may have an impact on how NYPD approaches hit-and-run crashes, which kill dozens of NYC pedestrians and cyclists a year.