Double-Parked Vehicle Led to Death of Bronx Cyclist — Yet Driver is Uncharged

A double-parked car on Park Avenue in The Bronx began a chain of events that caused the death of a cyclist on Thursday afternoon — but the NYPD neither charged the driver of the illegally parked car or the driver of the truck that killed the bike user.

According to police, a box truck was traveling northbound approaching the intersection of E. 138th Street at around 5 p.m. when he “attempted to navigate around” a double-parked vehicle. At roughly the same time, cyclist Jose Luis Estudillo Garcia, 38, “attempted to pass between the two vehicles.”

It’s unclear what happened next. According to police — whose investigation includes testimony of the truck driver, but not the victim — Garcia “lost control and fell to the street, where he was struck by the rear passenger wheels of the moving box truck.” He suffered “severe body trauma” and died at the scene.

The NYPD declined to provide more information, but a spokesman did say that neither driver was charged.

The Daily News reported that the truck driver, whose name was not released, had just turned out of a parking lot on Park Avenue before the crash. The paper also quoted a police source, who said of the truck driver, ““It appears he didn’t even see the bicyclist.”

The details of the crash are eerily similar to the sequence of events that caused the death of cyclist Madison Lyden on Central Park West in 2018. The truck driver who killed Lyden was charged, but the cab driver whose double-parked vehicle started the incident was not charged, even though cops said they recommended charges to District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.

The crash came less than a week after another cyclist, Ivan Morales, was killed just two blocks away.