A 62-year old man is dead after a three-car crash, and police say the driver who caused the collisions fled the scene.
“I went upstairs to go to bed, and I see flashing lights in my bedroom window,” a neighbor told NY1.
Ten minutes after midnight, police say a black Audi sedan driven by an unknown man was heading south on Ocean Parkway when it crashed into the back of a Toyota Camry,driven by a rideshare driver police identified as Yaya Dia, of Brooklyn.
That driver lost control, and the Camry went into a spin before hitting a third car, a Toyota Rav-4. Both the Camry and the Rav-4 hit trees along the parkway.
Dia, the driver of the Camry, was removed from the car by EMS workers at the scene and taken to Maimonides Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His backseat passenger, a 39-year-old woman, was also taken to the hospital in stable condition with what police say are injuries to her back and neck.
The driver of the Rav-4, a 25-year old man also working as a rideshare driver, was treated at the scene of the crash.
Neighbors say the roadway can be a scary one.
“I’m not surprised. I live right here next to the apartment building. What goes on at night? The screeching tires on the wheels,” the woman who saw the flashing lights before bed said. “They do it over here where the camera is. I don’t understand, there’s a camera here. And they think that’s going to stop the people from racing and speeding, but it doesn’t.”
The crash happened just blocks away from the intersection where, last March, a driver killed a mother and two of her children and critically injured a third child — all pedestrians.
Residents say the area’s tree-lined malls are often full of children heading to schools.
“Maybe we should put school zones like, something to make sure that the people know that there’s little kids in the area,” another neighbor said. “They cannot be driving like that. That’s so sad. I’m very sad for the people. I pray for their families.”
“You should slow down. But over the years, they put plenty of cameras on, and it’s on these hot wheels, you know, on this, this thoroughfare. But I think we live in, in a society where everybody’s in a rush,” a man who frequently walks along the parkway said. “It’s unfortunate, but this is something that’s very commonplace along this thoroughfare. Extremely, extremely dangerous over here.”
The roadway has been a frequent subject of Vision Zero efforts. In 2015, the city lowered the speed limit to 25 mph on Ocean Parkway to match the citywide speed limit of 25 mph unless otherwise posted.