Details about Yesterday's Canal Street Crash

Photograph of Fung Wah bus-dump truck crash by Marla Diamond/WCBS 880

Yesterday morning, a dump truck speeding off the Manhattan Bridge onto Canal Street lost control and hit a Fung Wah bus waiting to pick up passengers. The bus then jumped the curb and crashed into a building. One woman died and four others were injured, and here are some new details:

The woman who was killed was 57-year-old Lai Ho, a bank manager who lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and was headed her to job. The NY Times says she apparently died from a heart attack "after she was struck by a sign that was knocked down as she tried to cross the street." The Daily News says the sign fell when the bus hit it.
Another driver who had been near the truck told the Sun, "I was going 80 and he passed me. I think he might have been asleep."
The truck driver, Alejandro Fallo, who passed a Breathalyzer, said his brakes failed. However, the truck, operated by a NJ company, was over its weight limit and the company was actually banned from interstate travel because of other violations, so it should never have been here in NYC.
The Fung Wah bus was illegally parked on Bowery.

In recent days, over twenty pedestrians were injured when out-of-control vehicles hit them.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on June 24, 2008 9:14 AM

Comments [rss]

The Edge

#19, don't be mad because cyclists ALWAYS obey traffic laws.

ALWAYS.

snowman

stuff like this and all the curb-hopping vehicles in the last week is why NY should shut down several streets and ave's permenantly to vehicle traffic. Who says you need to be able to drive a car everywhere in a city anyway?

sonyactivision

Usually one scrapes "Fung Wah" off the insides of a dump truck. This obviously complicates matters...

Spirit of 76

BTW, [10], it's not DOT's job to ticket your hated "monster trucks." They don't have any kind of authority to do that. Have you ever seen a DOT employee handing out tickets? That is the purview of good, old NYPD traffic enforcement. Take it up with Ray Kelly, not Janette Sadik-Khan. DOT controls the streetscape, not vehicles.

Spirit of 76

Clearly, it's time to put some serious speed bumps on bridge exits. After suing the company that owns the dump truck out of business.

Johnny Nada

What the hell does cyclists have to do with this accident?

The Edge is an idiot.

The Edge

Cyclists ALWAYS obey traffic laws.

ALWAYS.

Wait, what?

twakum

Never, ever, take a Fung Wah bus. I do auto insurance for a living, are you listening to me? Never, ever take the Fung Wah Bus. In fact, dont even stand within 25 feet of one. Are you listeing to me? Do you want to die?

RoDogg

"Brooklyn and was headed her to job."

Can't depend of spell check for everything Gothamsit!

Ronenmars

I'm shocked this man isn't getting arrested for manslaughter. Going what is most likely over 100mph off a bridge into a crowded city street?! Are you fucking kidding me? In a DUMP TRUCK?

This company he works for needs to be sued. HE needs to be jailed. This is unacceptable!

zodak

i can't believe some of you idiots are trying to blame bicycles & the fung wah bus, when the truck driver clearly caused the accident by driving recklessly.

robingee

Going 80 on the Manhattan Bridge?? The "witness" is going to kill somebody someday too! Speed limits on the bridges are 30-40mph, you jackoff.

JenChungsBaby

Good thing the bus was there or else who knows where the truck would have gone.

JacqueMehoff

I think we're fortunate more people weren't hurt or dead. how many died in the midtown curb jump with the tourists and the garbage truck?

thefacts

When will that hippie DOT commissioner get off her bike and start enforcing laws against all the illegal monster trucks that come barreling across the Manhattan Bridge daily to the Holland Tunnel, in an attempt to circumvent the reversed toll on the Verrazano Bridge?

If DOT spent less time painting bike lanes on every street and had more personnel ticketing monster trucks, the citizenry would be better served.

Meanwhile, people die in Chinatown and she wants to turn Lafayette/Park/Bedford into a Colombian promenade. Is she on Colombian coke?

hard times

lol@MFer trying actually trying to start a complaint about bicyclists in this post!

what a clown.

babyhitler

this might be the end of fung wah's low fares. You know they are going to get sued for parking illegally. They are liable too.

moinonplus

I live right by here and walking across any part of this intersection is one of the most frightening experiences imaginable. there's a ghost bike right there to prove it.

drewo

MFer #5 - please tell us how many times recently has the behavior of a cyclist caused a death - like this story here of an out-of-control truck.

The driver's alibi - brakes failed - is a common one, not unlike "the accelerator got stuck". Was the truck immediately examined following the accident to verify the drivers claim? Or is the truck hauled off somewhere to be examined (or possibly never carefully examined) long after the fact?

And the illegally parked buses are a common sight all over lower Manhattan. Whether it's the inter-city buses, or the tour buses coming in for the day from the hinterlands.

MFer

And as long as they keep slapping cyclists on the wrists ... they'll keep getting hit by law-abiding drivers.

westernqueensland

As long as they keep slapping auto drivers on the wrist when they break laws, pedestrians, cyclists and those unfortunate enough to be be outside of a car (the American norm) will be disposable.

Jen Chung

@meowster, I know! The scariest streets are the ones right off the bridges--there are so many accidents in downtown Brooklyn and in Lower Manhattan, off the Brooklyn Bridge, because of vehicles barreling off and continuing to speed as they catch lights. It's horrible.

meowster

"I was going 80 and he passed me."

umm why was anyone going 80mph from the Manhattan Bridge onto Canal Street? That 'witness' better get a ticket and points. No wonder pedestrians are getting run over left and right. Unbelievable.