The 14th cyclist of the year to be struck and killed in Brooklyn died on Sunday, police said, with startling and graphic surveillance and dashboard camera video showing the car crash that led to the man’s death. The cyclist, 52-year-old Jose Alzorriz, is the 19th to die citywide in 2019.
Alzorriz was waiting at a red light in Midwood on Coney Island Avenue around 12:30 p.m. when an 18-year-old driving a Dodge sedan in the opposite direction ran through a “steady red light,” according to cops. The Dodge smashed into a blue Honda traveling east on Avenue L, causing the Honda to collide with the bicyclist, as well as a pedestrian.
The cyclist was killed, the pedestrian suffered injuries to his leg and the Honda driver suffered “trauma to the body,” according to police. No charges were filed immediately against the driver who ran the red, though the investigation is ongoing, police said.
Surveillance footage posted to Twitter by an account @Hasidic2 from the corner shows the accident. Even more graphic video posted on YouTube shows the cyclist pull up to the red light on Coney Island Avenue just moments before the crash, wearing a white helmet. He kicks his leg out just before the Honda hits him.
The Midwood crash comes during a spike in cyclist deaths in 2019, specifically concentrated in Brooklyn, where more than 70 percent of the riders this year have been killed.
The 19 cyclists killed — which has nearly doubled the number killed in all of 2018 — led Mayor Bill de Blasio to announce his Green Wave plan as part of Vision Zero, which would speed up the construction of protected bike lanes throughout the city by ten miles of lanes each year.
One safe streets group said the mayor’s plan is not enough. “We’re calling on the City Council — including Council Member Mathieu Eugene, in whose district this tragic crash occurred — to unite behind Speaker Corey Johnson’s Streets Master Plan bill, which would accelerate the schedule of redesigning deadly corridors like Coney Island Avenue,” said Thomas DeVito, senior director of advocacy at Transportation Alternatives.
2 Responses
How many more cyclists need to die as well a be injured while waiting for the politicians to make up their minds on what to do?
Back in the days when Koch was Mayor experimental protected bike lanes were done immediately with the use of Jersey barriers. How many lives saved if these temporary
barriers had been put up?
Instead of waiting, months/years for protected lanes.
Rhetoric doesn’t save lives!
The kid driving the car not only goes through a completely red light, which has been red for at least 7 seconds (per the more detailed video on youtube) but he also steers directly into the other car, instead of trying to avoid the crash by going behind it.
So he’s clearly: 1) a very shirty driver, and 2) guilty of criminally negligent homicide.
Whether this kid goes to jail, or his parents empty their bank accounts to save his little butt, he’s got to live the rest of his life as a killer.