Teenage Girl In Critical Condition After Exiting MTA Bus, Getting Hit By Truck In Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A teenage girl was rushed to the hospital Thursday morning after she was hit by a truck in Brooklyn.
Police said the 13-year-old exited an MTA bus and was struck by a box truck at Avenue J and Coney Island Avenue just after 7:30 a.m. in Midwood.
The girl was in critical condition at Maimonides Hospital, CBS2's Natalie Duddridge reported.
The truck and bus drivers remained at the scene. Police questioned the truck driver, but were still investigating exactly how the accident happened.
The girl had gotten off at a bus stop and was attempting to cross the street, but she was not in a crosswalk, according to police.
People who live in the area said the intersection is busy and dangerous.
"That's a tragedy," one person said. "It's actually really sad, she's really young. We should all pay attention a little more."
"It's terrible, because people cross, the trucks turn or the buses turn, and no one looks," another person said. "I almost got killed twice, really. People don't look here. This is very bad."
Transportation Alternatives, a street safety advocacy group, said this intersection is especially dangerous. Forty people have been injured there over the last five years, including 28 people in cars, 11 pedestrians and one cyclist, they said.
"The whole neighborhood there is one of the deadliest in New York City," Amy Cohen, co-founder of Families for Safe Streets, said. "It's because it's this big, wide roads conveying to cars that they're driving on a highway."
Cohen has been advocating for safer streets since her 12-year-old son Sammy was hit and killed by a van in Prospect Park in 2013.
"It still astonishes me today that it's been eight years since I last got to kiss him goodbye," Cohen said.
Cohen is part of a new statewide safe streets coalition that is urging Albany to pass a series of bills as pedestrian deaths spike.
Eleven people have been killed by vehicles citywide so far in 2022, a 120% increase from the same time period in 2021, advocates said.
"Since New York City adopted Vision Zero, this is the deadliest on record," Cohen said.
The bills aim to lower speed limits, redesign streets to slow traffic, and provide support to families and victims affected by crashes.