Tuesday, May 28, 2024
After 10-Year-Old Killed By Driver, South Williamsburg Residents Resigned To Dangerous Streets
Where is the outrage?
A 10-year-old Hasidic girl was killed by a driver on her way to school last month, yet unlike other community members who demand change after their most vulnerable road users are killed, there remains silence in South Williamsburg.
"Accidents happen," multiple residents said.
But Yitty Wertzberger's killing at Wythe Avenue and Wallabout Street was no accident. The intersection is known to be a dangerous spot in a neighborhood where there have already been two other road deaths this year — an alarmingly high number for such a small enclave. Given the numbers, the lack of outrage from the mostly Hasidic neighborhood is shocking. There is virtually no pressure from local community leaders on the Department of Transportation to fix the deadly streets.
In fact, the most vocal of those leaders, longtime Community Board 1 member Simon Weiser, opposes pre- or post-crash safety intervention because, he says, he doesn't believe they work.
"Some people take every accident and they want DOT to stand on their head," Weiser, the vice-chair of the CB1 Transportation Committee, told Streetsblog.
If there was ever a reason to stand on one's head, the death of 10-year-old Yitty Wertzberger might qualify. She was on her way back from school when the driver of an SUV — the vehicle of choice in South Williamsburg, where family sizes are large — got frustrated waiting behind other cars in traffic on Wallabout Street, so he crossed the yellow line on the two-way street, raced westbound in the wrong lane, turned left onto Franklin Avenue and ran right over the girl.
It was no "accident": there have been 24 reported crashes at that very intersection in just five years, injuring 11 and killing one, according to city data compiled by Crashmapper.
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