The dump-truck driver who killed the visiting mother of a Daily News reporter in Bedford-Stuyvesant last month has been charged with failure to yield, a misdemeanor, under the nearly year-old Right of Way law. On June 19th, Jeri Pearson was visiting her daughter, immigration reporter Erica Pearson, from Cozy Corner, Wisconsin. Johnson Hernandez, 39, drove into her as she crossed Bedford Avenue at Putnam Avenue. Surveillance footage shows her crossing with the light, according to the News.
The elder Pearson died at Kings County Hospital. Hernandez lives in North Bergen, New Jersey, and was working for the Jersey-based Cardella Trucking Company at the time of the crash. Passed last August, the Right of Way law makes it a misdemeanor to fail to yield to pedestrians and cyclists, punishable if the victim is injured by as much as a month in prison and a $250 fine. Hernandez is the 32nd person charged under the law, according to the group Transportation Alternatives.
A woman who answered the phone at Cardella Trucking Company said she was busy and did not immediately call back. A Facebook message to Hernandez was not immediately returned, and the voicemail of a number listed for him is full.
Last year, the Bed-Stuy intersection was the scene of eight crashes, including one that injured a pedestrian, city data show.
