Four more people can be added to the total number of New Yorkers who have been run down by drivers finding it difficult to stay on the road this weekend. In the fourth incident in two days, two toddlers were badly injured when a 16-year-old driver swerved onto the sidewalk in Flatbush, Brooklyn and injured two children and two young women. Both of the toddlers needed to be hospitalized--one in critical condition and the other in stable condition.
The Saturday accident comes fresh on the heels of three accidents Friday in which sidewalk pedestrians were mowed down by careening cars. Several people were hurt in Chinatown when a man backing his car into a parking spot jumped the curb and crashed into a bench with lunch time gatherers. Almost a dozen other people were injured as an unlicensed driver lurched from 7th Ave. in midtown Manhattan into a crowd of rush hour pedestrians near Penn station. And a woman was struck in Harlem by a livery cab driver who mistook the gas for the brake on his car.
The driver in Saturday's incident was Akeem Grant, who ended his ride by crashing into a tree planted in the sidewalk on East 19th St. in Brooklyn. He ran from the scene, leaving behind the bloodied children he just ran over. Cops quickly caught him, however, and he was arrested.
