A truck driver hit and killed a man crossing the street at a notoriously dangerous Kensington intersection near Ocean Parkway on Tuesday, police said.
The 57-year-old motorist behind the wheel of a box truck was traveling along Church Avenue toward McDonald Avenue when he plowed into the victim around 9:30 pm while making a right turn onto the Caton Avenue–bound side of the six-lane Prospect Expressway where that road meets Ocean Parkway, according to authorities.
Paramedics rushed the victim — who police had yet to identify by press time — to Methodist Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead, cops said.
Officers didn’t immediately charge the driver, who stayed at the scene, and made no arrests by press time, according to police, who said they are still investigating and did not comment on whether the victim had the right of way when the deadly crash occurred.
The city installed a pedestrian island to help locals cross the treacherous intersection after another truck driver hit and killed 73-year-old Ngozi Agbim at the juncture five years ago.
And state and local pols have attempted to improve safety along Ocean Parkway, once named Brooklyn’s most dangerous thoroughfare, by reducing its speed limit and banning certain right and left turns off of the road, but those regulations do not go far enough, according to Kensington’s councilman.
“Deeply saddened by the pedestrian killed y’day at Ocean Parkway & Church Avenue. We worked to make that intersection safer & added the refuge island after Ngozi Agbim’s death in 2013. But we have not done enough, and with tragic consequences,” Brad Lander wrote on Twitter the day after the fatal crash.
Since 2010, a total of 158 people were injured in traffic accidents at the intersection where the trucker fatally struck the man earlier this week, according to data from the city’s Vision Zero initiative, which claims no fatalities occurred at the juncture in that time frame, and does not list Agbim’s death among its recorded crashes.
A transportation-department spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment, but said the agency is looking into the omission.
The deadly collision was the second time a truck driver hit and killed a pedestrian crossing a Kings County street in less than two weeks. On Feb. 17, a United Parcel Service trucker hit and killed a 27-year-old woman crossing Ashland Place in Fort Greene while the victim had the right of way, according to authorities, who said they are still investigating and have not made any arrests.
