Brooklyn Victim Is Third NYC Pedestrian Killed by Truck Driver in Five Weeks

Update: NYPD has identified the victim as 83-year-old Irvin Gitlitz.

Another NYC pedestrian has been killed by a truck driver, this time at the intersection of Flatbush and Fourth Avenues. The crash happened this afternoon.

The victim, a male in his 40s, was struck at around 12:50 p.m., and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to NYPD and a DNAinfo story. An NYPD spokesperson said the preliminary report “looks like [the victim] was walking between two parked vehicles.”

Streetsblog was alerted to the crash by reader Ian Dutton, who took photos of the scene. It appears as if the victim is in the street on Flatbush, slightly east of Fourth, and the trucker came to a stop in the intersection, with the truck’s trailer in the crosswalk.

One picture seems to indicate that, though the cab has New York plates, the truck is not equipped with crossover mirrors, which are designed to allow drivers of trucks like this one to see what is directly in front of them. Trucks registered outside New York are exempt from the mirror requirement, but trucks registered in New York State and operated within the city are mandated by law to have them. Trucks exceeding 55 feet in length, as this one appears to be, are not allowed on surface streets without a permit.

NYPD had no information regarding summonses, and the spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing.

The victim of today’s crash is at least the third pedestrian killed by a semi truck driver in the last five weeks, following the March death of Lillian Cruz, in Red Hook, and the February killing of 6-year-old Amar Diarrassouba in East Harlem.

Tractor-trailer drivers have killed at least three other pedestrians on city streets since last August, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. The victims include Ignacio Cubano, Ken Baker, and Jessica Dworkin.

This fatal crash occurred on the border of the 78th, 84th, and 88th Precincts, and on the border of City Council districts represented by Steve Levin and Letitia James.

We’ll post more details as we get them.

Update: A witness told the Post the victim was dragged, and that the truck driver kept going until he was flagged down.

“The front of the truck hit him and he went under the truck. And the truck dragged him a good 15 feet,” said Joe Marino. “I got out of the truck to tell him he ran over someone and he said he didn’t even know. If I hadn’t stopped him he would have kept going.”

The Post reports that the truck is registered to Nika Trucking in Ellenville, New York.