Driver Inson Dubois Wood, who got 38 speed camera violations and dozens more tickets in the two-and-a-half years before he ran a red light, made an illegal left turn and accelerated into a crosswalk on York Avenue where Manhattan mom Emma Thebault was crossing with her infant son in tow on Oct. 18 of last year.<\/p>\n
Thebault, who along with her child suffered injuries and psychological trauma from the harrowing crash, has sued Wood, a swanky<\/a> interior designer and architect, for damages.<\/p>\n \u201cMy recollection is that I saw the car\u2019s light\u00a0speeding up towards me, then I blacked out. And then my next memory is being in the air, before I even touched the ground,\u201d she told Streetsblog. \u201cI was focused on my baby,\u00a0tied to\u00a0my body, and my whole brain was kind of checking on him. And then I hit the ground on my head, and I heard my son\u2019s\u00a0hit the ground\u00a0as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Graphic video: Watch as Emma Thebault is run down by a reckless driver, a baby strapped to her chest.<\/p>\n Videos from the crash show Wood barreling around other drivers waiting for the light ahead of him at E. 63rd Street, then accelerating into Thebault and other pedestrians traversing the east-side crosswalk with the walk signal.<\/p>\n Thebault, who saw her own blood dripping onto her son in the immediate aftermath of the crash, had no idea if her son was okay. The experience traumatized her, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was crying so that was the reassuring part, but I couldn\u2019t know exactly how good\u00a0or bad he was,\u201d she said. \u201cYou are left with your kid for this time waiting for first responders and you don\u2019t know what to do, and you are left with the fact that you might witness your kid dying in your arms. You can\u2019t go back after you have experienced this stress as a mother.\u201d<\/p>\n All that could have been prevented if the city and state governments took proactive steps to get known reckless drivers like Wood off the road: The Toyota driver, who covered his car in cop-adjacent stickers and has a National Police Defense Foundation<\/a> license plate, received 184 moving violations<\/a> and parking tickets prior to the crash, and 14 such violations in the month since the crash. <\/p>\n Drivers with an average of 24.2 speed camera violations are 11 times more likely to kill or severely injure someone while driving compared to someone with 14.2 violations, according to a 2024 study<\/a> by the city. Wood had 23 in the year before he slammed into Thebault and her son \u2014 and another two in the days and weeks afterwards.<\/p>\n Thebault alleged \u201cgross negligence,\u201d \u201crecklessness\u201d and \u201cintentional misconduct\u201d on the part of Wood in her Jan. 9 lawsuit for punitive damages.<\/p>\n \u201cThe crash was no random \u2018accident,\u2019 but rather the predictable consequence of Wood\u2019s years-long and near-daily habit of speeding and committing other traffic violations,\u201d the suit said.<\/p>\n Wood acknowledged seeing Thebault, but claimed she was on her cell phone \u2014 a claim contradicted by video of the crash. Even if that was true, Thebault\u2019s alleged actions do not absolve Wood of his dangerous behavior, according to her lawyer, who argues that Wood\u2019s public driving record make him especially culpable for the collision.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was doing something totally wrong, and he does things wrong in his car so often that he has actually hit people or damaged property three prior times in the last three years,\u201d said Vaccaro. \u00a0<\/p>\n All crashes can leave lasting scars.\u00a0The young mother said she feels she has been \u201cminimized in the urban space,\u201d and that the experience has shown her the true meaning of the term \u201croad violence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou are redimensioned to your body and to the possibility of your death, because you can be hit at any moment in the street,\u201d said Thebault when describing the way the crash changed her life. \u201cYou are deprived of the denial of all the risks you are living with in your daily life, and denial is a very healthy mental phenomenon that enables you to go through life without being eaten by anxiety.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The case shows the need for proactive measures to get drivers like Wood off the road \u2014 since tickets alone failed to curb his recklessness, Th\u00e9bault said. Wood received a puny $250 fine for striking Th\u00e9bault and her son then sent on his way to commit more violations with his car.<\/p>\n \u201cIf running a red light and hitting a mother and a seven-month-old baby results in a fine of $250, the same as parking twice in front of a hydrant, what then is blocking people from disrespecting the law?\u201d said Thebault. \u201cWe are relying on people\u2019s willingness to be good citizens. And they are moving in potential death machines, and the only thing that enables pedestrians not to struggle for life when they move from one sidewalk to another is this social consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n The city tried to use the \u201cDangerous Vehicle Abatement Program\u201d to get reckless drivers off the road, but it had little teeth and expired in 2023. Since then. so-called \u201csuper speeders\u201d have continued to cause carnage \u2014 like Miriam Yarimi, who hit and killed<\/a> Natasha Saada and her two children on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn last spring. <\/p>\n Advocates want the state to pass a \u201cstop super speeder\u201d law to require recidivist speeders like Wood and Yarimi to install speed limiting technology in their cars.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the case of Wood it is pretty clear that the $50 fines that he racks up on a regular basis do not dissuade him from this activity,\u201d said Vaccaro. There needs to be a systematic legislative framework that puts the burdens of harm on the reckless drivers, that increases their insurance rates, installs speed governors, and ultimately takes their licenses when they refuse to follow the rules that everyone is supposed to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n Supporters of the \u201cStop Super Speeders\u201d legislation hope it gets over the finish line this year, after Gov. Hochul included it<\/a> in her proposed budget.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an example of what we\u2019ve long known: when someone racks up speeding tickets and the government fails to act, it\u2019s often only a matter of time before something horrible happens,\u201d bill sponsor State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) said of Thebault\u2019s case. \u201cI\u2019m deeply relieved Emma and her [child] are alive, but they shouldn\u2019t have had to suffer through this. We know serial speeders pose an outsized risk, and we have the data to prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n