NEW YORK (PIX11) — Three people were killed in separate motor vehicle crashes across New York City in just over four hours late Wednesday, with drivers fleeing the scenes of two of those deadly collisions, police said.
In the latest crash, 64-year-old Hua Pan was hit by a white pickup truck while on a bike near Williamsbridge Road and Pierce Avenue in the Morris Park section of the Bronx around 11:20 p.m., according to authorities.
The driver of the pickup truck kept going after the collision and remained at large early Thursday, officials said. The motorist may have been fleeing police at the time of the collision, authorities said.
First responders rushed the cyclist to an area hospital, but he could not be saved.
That deadly hit-and-run came less than four hours after another in Manhattan, where 62-year-old Oscar Nieves was hit by a northbound vehicle as he crossed Third Avenue at East 122nd Street in East Harlem around 7:30 p.m., police said.
“He did not deserve to get hit and dragged the way he did, and I just want whoever is responsible to turn themselves in,” said a younger cousin of Nieves Thursday.
Another longtime friend of the victim pointed out that there had been a number of hit-and-runs in the area.
Nieves succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital, officials said. The driver fled the scene and remained at large early Thursday, authorities said. Investigators did not immediately provide a description of the vehicle involved.
Police said Thursday afternoon during a briefing on first quarter crime stats that no arrests had been made in either of the hit-and-runs.
Just 15 minutes before the East Harlem incident, another pedestrian was killed after a car crash at 50th Street and 13th Avenue in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, police said.
Two vehicles collided at the intersection, with the impact sending one of them into a 23-year-old man standing nearby, officials said. First responders rushed the man to a nearby hospital, but he could not be saved.
The drivers in that collision stayed at the scene, according to authorities. It was not immediately clear whether they were injured.
“We are going in the wrong direction,” said Elizabeth Adams with Transportation Alternatives. “We have a lot of work to do to get us back on track to achieve our Vision Zero goals. So far in 2023 alone, crashes have killed 54 New Yorkers, 32% more than 2018, which was the safest year of Vision Zero.”
Adams points out that the city has identified the areas in Brooklyn and in Manhattan, where Nieves died, as “Vision Zero corridors,” where people continue to be at risk. But so far she said the city and state have failed to implement many of the necessary changes to better protect pedestrians and cyclists.
“We need to do a lot more when it comes to street safety, when it comes to keeping our neighbors safe and addressing this entirely preventable crisis,” she said.
