Dec. 28, 2023 By Ben Brachfeld
A moped rider in Queens was killed Thursday morning in a hit-and-run crash involving a tractor-trailer driver, police reported.
Police say the victim, a man who remains unidentified, was riding a moped scooter eastbound on Northern Boulevard in Flushing a little after 6 a.m. on Dec. 28, and was attempting to turn left onto Parsons Boulevard.
At that moment, cops said, he collided with a red semi-truck traveling westbound on Northern Boulevard. The exact nature of the crash remains unclear, but the collision knocked the man to the roadway.
The truck driver did not remain at the scene, authorities said, continuing westbound on Northern Boulevard. Police are still searching for the red truck, and the crash remains under investigation.
Emergency services responded to the crash at 6:13 a.m. Thursday and discovered the man’s body. EMS pronounced him dead at the scene.
Northern and Parsons Boulevards was previously the site of a fatal crash in January 2020, when a 74-year-old woman was killed by a Jeep driver while crossing the street. The intersection has seen 97 crashes with 117 injuries over the past decade, according to NYC Crash Mapper.
A block south, at Parsons Boulevard and 37th Avenue, a man died last November after crashing his BMW into the curb, causing the vehicle to flip over.
Northern Boulevard sports a reputation as a deadly thoroughfare. Between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Jackson Heights and 150th Street in Flushing, the roadway has seen 15 traffic fatalities over the past decade, including 12 motorists and 3 pedestrians, according to Crash Mapper.
They include 9-year-old Giovanni Ampuero, who was killed in a hit-and-run by an 86-year-old SUV driver in 2018.
Safe streets advocates have long called for a street redesign on busy Northern Boulevard; this year, the Adams administration finished installing a bus lane on the road between Broadway in Woodside and 114th Street in Corona.
Through Christmas Eve, the NYPD had reported 250 traffic fatalities across the five boroughs this year, two fewer than at the same point last year.
The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan saw declines in collision deaths this year, and Staten Island has had the same number as last year, but Queens has seen a dramatic increase in carnage: 84 people have lost their lives in crashes this year in the world’s borough, 27% more than last year, according to NYPD data.
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