Gen Zhan, a Kips Bay resident, was reportedly walking north in the crosswalk at Second Avenue when he was struck by the ambulance, which was making a left. Zhan, 81, died a short time later at Bellevue.
Per ABC 7:
The ambulance did not have lights and sirens on at the time of the crash. The ambulance had a green arrow and right of way as it was making the turn.The ambulance's driver was a 22-year-old man who had less than a year on the job, the Daily News noted.
The NYPD Collision Investigation Squad is probing the incident.
The way the city has retimed some of the lights in the area (like this one) is super dangerous for long-time local pedestrians. I cross here every day, and at some point in the past year or two they changed that left turn signal for the southbound traffic on 2nd avenue to turn green not when the rest of the southbound traffic first gets a green (like you'd expect), but at the end of the cycle, right before it turns red. (They did the same thing at Houston and A, I believe.) Obviously the pedestrian signal while the cars have the green is the orange "don't walk" hand, but I can easily see if you're 81 and have been crossing here for thirty years, you might not notice the change, and might walk right out during their turn signal thinking they've got a red because it's near the end of the light cycle (or at least that they'll yield to you), and that's just how pedestrians are used to these things working. I see people do it here and on Houston all the time.
ReplyDeleteVery sad.
A car, even an ambulance, especially without it's lights on, never has a right of way over a pedestrian. Just cause you have a green light doesn't give you the right to run down a pedestrian. The same goes for bikes. Pedestrians always have the right of way.
ReplyDelete@1:10pm: You said it all. I am so sorry for that man who lost his life.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if NYC ever REALLY takes older people into account when it makes changes to the timing of lights and even the existence of multiple lanes (bike lane, concrete divider lane, etc.).
I feel it's more dangerous to be a pedestrian now than it ever was earlier in my life, and your point about long-ingrained habits in older people is well made.
@3:02pm
ReplyDeleteYou couldn't be more wrong. It's called an advanced green and it's for left turning vehicles only.
In NYC, trailing green arrows are the safest and most efficient because the left hand turns are occurring at a the same time the cars going straight from the same direction have a green light. In fact now that there is a red arrow here for cars while bikes have a green light means pedestrians have an extended time to cross without vehicles turning left (though bikes can turn left). It's tragic that someone was killed, and I also feel very sorry for the ambulance driver, clearly someone who had hoped to save some lives in his job.
ReplyDeleteIf there was no green arrow light present, just the green light, then the ambulance might have slowed down to make sure there was no one in the cross walk before turning. Then let me ask, what's the point of having the green arrow anyway??? (Let me guess, so cars can make a left at an unsafe speed without having to think; if it's green, then "I have the right of way, so F**k you all - Ha, Ha, Ha!!!!")
ReplyDeleteThe elderly man who was hit was my grandfather-in-law. There's a senior community center near there, where he's been going (not every day, but quite often) for over a decade. Whose idea was it to put up a green arrow in order to speed up traffic in a location where a large number of seniors congregate???
If only a green light was present (and not an arrow), the driver perhaps would have slowed down before making the left turn. Those few extra seconds taken perhaps would have saved a life. Even more, taking those few extra seconds, the ambulance definitely would have arrived at its "non-priority call" destination.