So-called \u201cside guards\u201d or underguards that protect against the type of fatality that occurred on Friday night on E. 14th Street have been mandated for heavy commercial waste vehicles since 2015, three years after cyclist Mathieu Lefevre<\/a> was killed in Brooklyn by the driver of a truck which lacked the safety feature.<\/p>\n Companies had until 2023 to comply with the law. But the Badger hydro-excavation truck the driver was operating who ran over Serkov and her friend had a city-issued exemption, the New York Times initially reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Monday, the Business Integrity Commission confirmed that report \u2014\u00a0and told Streetsblog that about half of trade waste trucks have been exempted because \u201cthe design or operation of the vehicle (i.e. incorporated toolbox, ladder, fuel tank)\u201d makes it too challenging to install the after-market safety feature.<\/p>\n \u201cThis waiver application demonstrated that the vehicle had incorporated features such as toolboxes and fuel tanks on the vehicle sidewalls, rendering guards impractical,\u201d said Business Integrity Commissioner Director of Policy Leah Nomkin.<\/p>\n There were 312 such waivers issued this year, down from 572 in the last year of the Adams administration. The exemption on the Badger excavator was granted in 2023 in \u201caccordance with the governing rules,\u201d according to an agency spokesperson.<\/p>\n Teen cyclist Mario Valenzuela was also killed by the driver<\/a> of a trade waste truck without underguards in 2019. <\/p>\n Advocates were stunned at the missing safety equipment in the latest crash.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shocked that there were exemptions,\u201d said Jessie Singer, the author of \u201cThere Are No Accidents\u201d who was active in the transportation advocacy scene when the safety guard law was drafted. \u201cThe idea that there would be a permanent exemption to a safety law rather than a requirement for businesses to get their fleet in line over time seems incredibly problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n The news that hundreds of dangerous trucks are roaming around town without mandated safety features will also shock anyone who listened to Mayor Mamdani\u2019s press conference last week<\/a> announcing the reboot of the city\u2019s Vision Zero initiative.<\/p>\n At the confab, Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn pointed out that in order for the city to achieve zero traffic deaths, the focus must be on a \u201csafe systems approach that acknowledges that we all make mistakes \u2026 that our road systems should be designed so that those mistakes don\u2019t cost us our lives as we simply try to get around New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n That is, of course, what happened on Friday, Sept. 18, when two teenage girls shared an electric Citi Bike only to be side-swiped by the Badger truck driver. According to video obtained by Streetsblog, plus witness and police accounts, the teens and the Badger truck driver were both heading west on 14th Street when the truck driver turned right onto northbound First Avenue striking the teens, killing 15-year-old Daria Serkov. It is unclear if the teens were turning right or going straight to either continue on 14th Street or to make the right onto First to connect with the protected bike lane on the west side of the block.<\/p>\n In either case, the teens had the right of way, but the driver of the truck apparently did not see them. He has not been charged.<\/p>\n An underguard, which reduces fatalities by 40 percent<\/a>, prevents smaller vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists from getting pinned under the big-rigs in the event of a side-impact collision.<\/p>\n So far the 57-year-old driver has not been charged with any crime and his name has not been released. He remained at the scene for questioning, according to police. The NYPD has dramatically reduced enforcement against drivers for failing to yield to pedestrians or other vehicles. In 2019 the police gave 81,710 such tickets, last year it gave out just 42,686, a 48 percent drop, according to city stats. <\/p>\n When \u2018Safe Systems\u2019 fail<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s fatal crash shows just how much work needs to be done to build out the \u201cSafe Systems\u201d that Flynn is championing. For starters, 14th Street, a popular east-west route for cyclists, has no protected bike lane. Cyclists are riding in traffic with buses and commercial vehicles using the busway between Third and Ninth avenues. The city is currently planning a full buildout of the 14th Street busway<\/a>, but there has been no talk of making the corridor safe for cyclists.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the aftermath of this killing, we need to push hard for bike infrastructure to be part of this capital project,\u201d said Sofia Barandiaran, the New Jersey & New York Greenway Manager with the East Coast Greenway Alliance.<\/p>\n Barandiaran said she was disappointed a March survey by the DOT barely mentioned cycling and wants to make sure two-wheelers are not left out of the conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cI envision 14th Street as a first-of-its-kind greenway\u00a0and transit street reminiscent of the grassy tramways of Europe, sort of like the new-and-improved Park Ave design, except this time it would not only incorporate pedestrian, bike, and green infrastructure, but also swap out the car lanes for bus rapid transit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Protected bike lanes force drivers, like the one operating the truck when he hit the two girls, to make slower, wider turns, part of a \u201cSafe Systems\u201d approach. It\u2019s about designing streets in such a way that when human error occurs, the consequences are manageable.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people online blaming these children for being on a Citi Bike or double-riding or whatever else, but none of those things would have you know prevented their death,\u201d said Singer. \u201cThe \u2018Safe Systems\u2019 approach seeks to disable that victim-blaming, and even disable the blaming of the truck driver, because we can\u2019t really learn anything when we\u2019re focused on blaming the actions of either individual.\u201d<\/p>\n Another way to work towards a systems approach is to change the trucks themselves. The city has long known the risks involved with the type of truck that killed Serkov. A 2021 study<\/a> showed warned of the exact situation that occurred 14th Street last Friday, where a truck driver operating in a low-visibility conventional cab was stopped and then started driving and killed someone.<\/p>\n \u201cConventional truck cabs have limited visibility that increases the risk of collisions involving injuries or fatalities. Large trucks with conventionally designed cabs can have a frontal obstructed view of 20 feet or more. Since 2010, all fatal collisions in New York City involving a commercial garbage truck that was stopped and then put into drive, involved a cab with a conventional design,\u201d a 2021 press release<\/a> stated. <\/p>\n Some mourners gathered at the site of the crash expressed fear about biking the same streets where the girls were hit. One neighbor, whose apartment is adjacent to the crash site, said he is sick of looking for blame after crashes. Instead, he wants systemic change.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I am kind of over the whole \u2026 blame for one road user or another, even drivers,\u201d said David Dartley whose child attended middle school with both of the victims and whose sister was killed by a driver. \u201cModern city streets are a meat grinder and the whole system should be wiped off the drawing board and we should start from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n The Business Integrity Commission and the NYPD are both still investigating the \u201cheartbreaking\u201d crash, said mayoral spokesperson Jeremy Edwards.<\/p>\n Badger offered a statement of condolences and told Streetsblog it is fully cooperating with the NYPD\u2019s investigation into the crash.\u00a0The company declined to explain why it sought an exemption from the side-guard rule or what other safety features it puts in its trucks.<\/p>\n \u2014 with Sam Brule<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Safety last. The excavation truck whose driver killed a teenager on a Citi Bike last week was exempted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-353678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/mathieu_chieuanh-300x290.jpg\")
Mathieu Lefevre was killed in 2012 by a truck driver without an underguard. Photo: Chieu-Anh Le Van<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/13182-e1790020700356.jpg\")
A memorial to Daria Serkov, 15, who was killed by a truck driver while on a Citi Bike on 14th Street in Manhattan. Photo: Sam Brule<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/swiss-cheese.jpg\")
The \u201cSafe Systems\u201d approach is also called \u201cthe Swiss cheese approach\u201d because tragedies are avoided by multiple redundancies. Photo: YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n