A flatbed truck driver struck and killed a pedestrian on E. 125th Street in East Harlem Wednesday morning, according to police and witness videos from the scene.
The trucker struck the 53-year-old man near Third Avenue just before 10:40 a.m., and the victim died at the scene, according to the NYPD.
The driver stayed at the scene and was not arrested. A Department spokesperson said there was “no suspected criminality.”
The NYPD did not have more information available about the deadly collision, nor did the agency provide the victim’s name.
Footage from the scene shows first responders trying to get the man out from under the tractor trailer close to the intersection.
The police draped the body in a white sheet and set up barriers around it to block it from view, as onlookers gathered, and as the driver held his head in his hands, videos show.
Harlem’s main drag has long been a dangerous place for traffic violence.
On 125th Street from river to river there have been 310 crashes injuring 176 people over the past 12 months — nearly one crash per day, with half injuring someone. The injured include 41 pedestrians and 28 cyclists.
On just that one block where the crash happened, there have been 21 serious collisions over the past year, or almost two per month, injuring seven people, including three pedestrians and a cyclist.
The four-lane road has no marked pedestrian crossings between the avenues on the long block.
The uptown neighborhoods lack safe street infrastructure of the wealthier areas downtown, such as protected bike lanes crossing east to west.
Protected paths for cyclists or narrowing roadways with so-called road diets have proven to reduce numbers of pedestrians killed or seriously injured by 30 percent, according to Department of Transportation statistics.
Traffic deaths have remained above pre-pandemic levels so far this year, at 84 fatalities through Tuesday, up from 77 during that time in 2019, according to the latest DOT stats.
Thirty-five pedestrians were killed by drivers this year, down from 41 in 2022 and 45 in 2019, but cyclists deaths have soared this year to 13 people losing their life, the highest number in a decade.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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