The flatbed truck that killed a 77-year-old man on Canal St. by the Manhattan Bridge had leaking brake lines and low brake fluid, police said Friday.
The 66-year-old driver, who owned the flatbed, hasn’t been charged criminally for the Thursday crash on Canal St. but was issued several criminal court summonses, which included having low brake fluid, brake fluid leaking from his brake lines, and inoperable left and right brake lights.
The driver told police that his brakes had failed just before the crash, cops said.
Yong Wong, 52, was taking her elderly father, Ting Jun Ye, to a doctor’s appointment when they were struck while waiting to cross Canal St., Wong’s husband told the Daily News Thursday.
“The truck came from the Manhattan Bridge very fast. My wife is very careful, but she didn’t see the truck coming,” Kin Fai Wong, 77, said.
Police said the driver of the Chevrolet truck had accelerated as he came off the Manhattan Bridge at about 10 a.m. Thursday, but it wasn’t immediately clear why he was accelerating. As the driver made a right turn onto Bowery, the truck jumped the sidewalk, striking Ye and his daughter.
Traffic is pictured on the Manhattan side of the Manhattan Bridge. (Shutterstock)
A second woman, 71, was also hit in the crash.
Cops had issued summonses to the driver twice before, once in 2024 for failing to yield to a pedestrian and in 2018 for disobeying a traffic device, officials said.
A security guard who works on Bowery near the crash scene said there should be signs for drivers coming off the bridge to slow down.
“There’s been plenty of deaths on this corner. People speed coming off the bridge. This corner is very bad. It’s so congested with traffic,” Juan, 55, said. “They really need to crack down on this corner. If they were to put flashing lights there, yellow, warning you to slow down, that would grab your attention.”
“I’ve seen them put yellow lights on the dumbest turns and then somewhere like this where they actually need it, they don’t put them up,” he said.
The fatal crash ramps up the pedestrian death toll on Canal St. near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge — dubbed by transportation advocates as a “Boulevard of Death” — to 10 since 2014, officials said.
“We won’t pretend this crash was anything but inevitable — if the city continues to delay critical safety upgrades on Canal Street, more New Yorkers will die,” said Ben Furnas, executive director at Transportation Alternatives. “Canal Street should have been redesigned years ago. The time for waiting is over.”
Elected officials in lower Manhattan have called for lowering the Manhattan Bridge’s 35 mph speed limit, which quickly drops to 20 mph when the Manhattan end of the span opens up onto Bowery.
A busy pedestrian corner is at the mouth of the bridge, according to advocates, who said there are currently no speed cameras lining the span to enforce its 35 mph speed limit.
Video obtained by The News shows a stack of wood pallets hanging off the truck’s flatbed striking Ye and his daughter as it speeds past. The impact sends the pair flying down the sidewalk, where they slam into the 71-year-old woman, who falls to the pavement with them, the footage shows.
After striking the pedestrians, the truck driver continued up the Bowery, sideswiping a van a block away near Hester St., cops said. A separate video shows the truck strike the van and then glance off a box truck before rolling to a stop.
Medics rushed the three pedestrians to Bellevue Hospital, where Ye died. The elderly woman who suffered minor leg injuries was listed in stable condition Friday.
The 47-year-old man behind the wheel of the van that was struck by the flatbed truck was taken to the same hospital in stable condition.
“I’m so sad, man. How can you kill someone?” Wong asked. “My father-in-law is dead, and we’re only lucky to have my wife still alive.”
Ye’s daughter was in stable condition, but suffered several spinal fractures, cops said. It was not immediately clear how severe the fractures were, but she could face a long road to recovery.
“Her injuries are internal,” her husband said. “(The truck) did a lot of damage.”
Police investigate after multiple pedestrians were struck by a truck on Canal St. and the Bowery in Manhattan on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
The city Department of Transportation is scheduled to begin work on its redesign plan for Canal St. this year, but will start on the western side of the street. Transportation advocates said the roadway is more dangerous on the eastern side – near where Ye and his daughter were hit.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal joined the chorus to make the corridor safer.
“I’m heartbroken by today’s horrific crash on Canal Street and Bowery,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote in a statement posted to X Thursday. “DOT must act now on immediate safety measures and move forward with a Canal Street redesign and safety improvements at the Manhattan Bridge entrance that protects pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.”
Video obtained by the Daily News shows the truck (top-center) veer onto the curb where it strikes a woman and the elderly man, who are hit by wood pallets hanging off the truck’s flatbed. (Obtained by Daily News)
A spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation said they were investigating the crash with the NYPD.
“This was a horrific crash involving a truck that appears to have lost control as it exited the Manhattan Bridge,” the spokesman said. “We are reviewing the circumstances of this tragic event, and our thoughts are with the victims’ families and loved ones.”
Police investigate after multiple pedestrians were struck by a truck on Canal St. and the Bowery in Manhattan on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
City officials said that they have taken a number of steps to slow down vehicles as they come off the bridge, including lowering the speed limit and narrowing the lanes.
This week’s deadly crash took place at nearly the exact spot where just over a year ago a speeding driver of a stolen Chevrolet Malibu slammed into a bicyclist and a woman sitting on a bench near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, killing both of them.
Police investigate after two people were killed when an out-of-control car drove onto the sidewalk on Canal St. and Bowery on Saturday, July 19, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Autumn Romero, 23, was charged with murder and related charges for the July 19, 2025, crash that claimed the lives of 63-year-old May Kwok as she sat on a bench at the intersection of Canal St. and Bowery and Kevin Cruickshank, 55, as he rode his bike on the sidewalk near the mouth of the bridge.
Romero was behind the wheel of the stolen Chevrolet Malibu that Lecraft had originally rented, authorities said. She barreled over the bridge, driving 100 mph, more than double the speed limit, before careening into Kwok and Cruickshank.
The driver hit Cruickshank first, throwing him off his bicycle and across the intersection. Kwok was then thrown from the bench, her legs ripped from her body, according to authorities, before Romero rammed into a parked NYPD auxiliary van.