Woman Hit, Killed by Flatbed Truck on St. Johns Place in Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn, NY — December 28, 2022, a 75-year-old woman was hit and fatally injured by a commercial truck while crossing St. Johns Place in Brooklyn.
Authorities say the incident happened just after 2:00 p.m. at St. Johns Place and Utica Avenue. Preliminary investigation suggests the victim was crossing the road in a marked crosswalk when a northbound flatbed truck on Utica hit her for unknown reasons.
The pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation is ongoing but police say the driver remained at the scene and no arrests have been made.
No further information is currently available.
Unless preliminary reports about this incident are way off-base, it looks like someone used a designated crosswalk in broad daylight and was still hit by passing traffic. There may be extenuating circumstances the news didn't report and I'm not accusing the truck driver of misconduct, but I really wonder exactly how and why this collision occurred--and whether it could or should have been avoided.
To determine that there's still a whole lot of variables to cover: If northbound traffic had a red or green light, if the pedestrian was protected by a walk signal, what precisely the truck driver was doing while approaching the intersection, if there was other traffic in the area, if anything blocked either person's view of the other just before the collision, and many other details. The point isn't to overcomplicate things, just to be sure that all the dots are connected and the picture they make is clear.
To that end, I hope police will take the time and care needed to make sense of this terrible incident. The victim's loved ones certainly deserve the whole story, and there may be questions of accountability to address depending on what that story is. Only time and a thorough investigation could say.
