Transportation Alternatives, Families for Safe Streets Statements After Hit-and-Run Truck Driver Kills a Child in Queens and Dump Truck Driver Kills a Senior Pedestrian in Brooklyn

Traffic violence has killed 125 New Yorkers this year – the deadliest year to date under Vision Zero.

This is the 7th child killed in 2024, and the 113th child killed under Vision Zero.

NEW YORK — Yesterday afternoon, a dump truck driver hit and killed an 83-year-old woman crossing Bond Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Four hours later, on the last day of school for children across New York City, a hit-and-run delivery truck driver struck two sisters in front of a school on 47th Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens. The driver injured the 8-year-old girl and killed the 16-year-old girl – the 10th child fatality in Queens in 18 months. 

The type of dump truck that killed a pedestrian in Boerum Hill is incredibly dangerous; this is the sixth time this year a dump truck has killed a New Yorker. This particular dump truck is owned by D&A Contracting. Dump trucks owned by D&A Contracting killed two New Yorkers in 2019. Post-2020, truck drivers are responsible for one in ten pedestrian fatalities. 

47th Avenue is a Vision Zero priority corridor – one of the most dangerous streets in New York City. The streets around schools are substantially more dangerous than their counterparts; streets around schools see 57% more crashes and 25% more injuries during drop-off times, and this danger is disproportionately concentrated in predominantly Black and brown schools. The Open Streets for Schools program closes streets with schools to car traffic, creating safe spaces for students to travel, gather, and learn, but the program is shrinking.

Statement from Elizabeth Adams, Deputy Executive Director for Public Affairs at Transportation Alternatives:

“Today, a family should be celebrating the first day of summer with their two children. Instead, they’re mourning one daughter while another is hospitalized in critical condition.”

“Yesterday, as just-graduated middle schoolers walked out of I.S. 125, they saw their neighbor dying just outside the school’s doors. They watched as the girl’s mother held her daughter during her last few minutes.”

“New York City failed to protect these children. The streets outside schools can and should be closed to car traffic – especially during pick-up and drop-off, when these streets become especially dangerous – but 47th Avenue is not. There was not even a crossing guard on duty on a street the City knows is dangerous.” 

“Just a few hours earlier, a dump truck hit and killed an 83-year-old woman crossing the street in Brooklyn. We need painted crosswalks at every intersection – including and especially all three sides of these T-intersections. DOT proposed a rule to prohibit vehicles from blocking pedestrian crossing points at unmarked crosswalks back in September, but hasn’t moved forwards.” 

“During the deadliest year for traffic crashes in over a decade, two more families are mourning wholly preventable losses and we are furious as we demand more from our city’s leaders. We need real action and real leadership to protect our youngest and oldest pedestrians.”

Statement from Martha Valenzuela, member of Families for Safe Streets:

“My heart goes out to this family that is beginning to live every parent's worst nightmare. In 2019, my own sweet son Mario was also killed by the driver of a dump truck just two miles from where this precious girl's life was taken from her.”

“The time is now for our leaders to decide that enough children have been killed on our streets and to design them to prevent these horrific tragedies so no more families have to experience the unending pain that mine and now this family will for the rest of their lives. We send them our love and deep condolences for the loss of their daughter."