Yesterday, February 9, eleven-year old Victor Flores and his ten-year old friend Juan Estrada were killed under the rear wheels of a turning cement truck while walking across the intersection of 9th Street and 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn. The boys were legally crossing with the WALK signal but the truck driver did not see them. Turning truck drivers regularly kill pedestrians and cyclists, but the New York City Department of Transportation has done little to prevent this kind of tragedy.

After reading the news release below, please e-mail Mayor Bloomberg and ask him to take action to keep young children and other pedestrians from being killed by turning trucks. Please send a copy of your message to T.A. at info@transalt.org.

Sample Text

Pedestrians Need Protection from Turning Truck Drivers

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

Thank you for leading the charge for more red light cameras and safer city streets. I appreciate your efforts to make walkers and cyclists safer.

To this end I urge you to take action to protect pedestrians from turning truck drivers.

The recent deaths of eleven-year old Victor Flores and his ten-year old friend Juan Estrada, who were killed under the rear wheels of a turning cement truck while walking across the intersection of 9th Street and 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, has once again emphasized how much the City needs to do to make the most vulnerable pedestrians, children and seniors, safer. Truck drivers kill about twenty New York City pedestrians and cyclists every year. Many of these people are killed by a turning truck driver while they are walking with the walk light in the crosswalks--just as these boys in Brooklyn were.

Many of these deaths are preventable. Many cities, states and countries use a device called a 'neckdown,' which is an extension of the sidewalk at the corner. You might know them from Restaurant Row on 8th Avenue and 48th Street in Manhattan. Neckdowns help to slow turning motorists, giving pedestrians more time to move out of the way or be spotted by the driver.

I urge you to install neckdowns on the corners where pedestrians are most threatened by turning motorists.

I also urge you to fully fund and announce the kick-off of the Department of Transportation’s innovative Safe Schools program. The two boys in Brooklyn were walking home from school when struck and killed. This program might help other children avoid this sad fate.

Thank you,

Please copy the text above and paste it into a form at http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html.  Please send a copy of your message to T.A. at info@transalt.org.

Following is the news release T.A. sent out in response to the incident.

Killing of Brooklyn Boys by Truck Driver Preventable:
Neckdowns and Leading pedestrian Intervals could have made the difference. DOT should employ both to prevent future tragedies.

Pictured in blue are neckdowns, which slow turning motorists and help prevent fatal crashes of the kind which occurred at 3rd Avenue and 9th Street. This rendering shows neckdowns at a different Brooklyn intersection and capped by protective posts called bollards.
 

According to pedestrian safety specialists at the street safety group Transportation Alternatives, Juan Estrada and Victor Flores, the young Brooklyn boys killed on February 9 on their way home from school, might be alive today if the City engineered the intersection of 9th Street and 3rd Avenue differently.

Specifically, if the NYC Department of Transportation had installed neckdowns, an extension of the sidewalk at the corner, the truck driver who killed the boys would have had to make a wider and slower turn. This would have potentially given the boys more time to get out of the way, or for the driver to see them.

Additionally, if the NYC DOT changed the signal timing to give pedestrians a head start before motorists were given the green, called a Leading Pedestrian Interval (LPI), the boys may have gotten further into the intersection and been more visible to the driver. New York City has installed hundreds of LPIs throughout the city.

Currently, the NYC Department of Transportation is conducting a major study of truck use and its impact on city neighborhoods.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/truckintro.html 

On August 21, 2003, Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance sent a letter to the NYC DOT asking it to:

Use the truck route study to refine traffic calming approaches to keeping trucks on legal and appropriate routes, and to add traffic calming to its regular toolbox. (View letter.)

The need for the NYC DOT to use street engineering and traffic calming techniques like neckdowns to protect pedestrians from turning drivers is given renewed urgency by the deaths of these two young boys. Pedestrians and cyclists are regularly killed by turning truck drivers. Unfortunately, the NYC DOT has not implemented neckdowns or other new street designs after these deaths.

Other high profile pedestrian deaths from turning truck drivers include the 1997 killing of a middle aged women and mother at the intersection of 7th Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan. Read the article and proposed safety improvements at http://www.transalt.org/press/magazine/003Summer/08trucks.html