21 year old pedestrian killed by hit and run driver on dangerous Houston Street

21 year old Andy Eduardo Gil was killed in a hit and run accident in Manhattan. The accident occurred on Houston Street at the intersection of Forsyth Street just one block away from where NYU student Raife Miligan was killed by a drunk driver  in May (see previous blog) and a few blocks away from where another hit and run driver killed 23 year old Borkot Ullah, a delivery cyclist in 2021. According to workers who were able to see a video surveillance of the accident, the car was speeding when the driver hit the pedestrian who was in the crosswalk.

According to a recent article in Transportation Alternatives, speeding is quite common on Houston Street. The speeding camera installed at the intersection of East Houston and Avenue C issued 18,870 tickets in the fiscal year of 2021 which is the equivalent of a ticket every 13 minutes of operations which is 6:00 am to 10:00 pm during weekdays only until August 1st. Starting August 1st speed cameras will be turned on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the city and hopefully will deter drivers speeding at night or during the week-end.

Houston Street is a very dangerous corridor of downtown Manhattan and Transportation Alternatives mentions that it was redesigned and the width of the travel lanes were enlarged which resulted in increased speeding.  The city promised in late 2020 to install “enhanced crossing” for pedestrians but so far nothing has been done.

Since the beginning of the month of July almost one person died in a nyc  crash every day

Over the last 5 years, 3 people were killed and 585 were injured on Houston Street. Among the injured were 128 pedestrians and 115 cyclists.

Andy Eduardo Gil is the 125th person to die in a car crash in New York City in 2022.  13 people died between July 1st and July 14th in the city, that is almost one person a day.

Hit-and-run accidents that resulted in critical injury are up 129% during the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2019, before the Covid19 pandemic.  Additionally only one case was solved.