There were three fatal hit-and-runs over the weekend. Yesterday, a 74 year-old man was killed when crossing a street in Woodside, Queens. He had gone to buy the newspapers, coffee, and milk "as he did every morning," reports Newsday, when a Mitsubishi "slammed into him." Police did find a car matching the description, but when the police questioned the driver (who was talking on a cellphone), the driver drove off. Then the car was found abandoned at a parking garage.
Another incident in Brooklyn occurred when a driver, Ronald Marietta, on the Belt Parkway lost control of his car and flipped over the median, crashing into the driver's side of an oncoming SUV. The SUV's driver was killed; Marietta failed a breathalyzer test. And a speeding ticket was issued to a woman who killed a teenager crossing Beach 201st Street. In related news, two mothers whose sons were hit by a drunk driver in Queens are going to Albany to fight for tougher drunk driving laws; it turns out that the driver who killed one son and left one critically injured might only be subject to a sentence of "influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail, rather than a felony."
Gothamist is going to get very PSA-y now: Be careful when you cross the street - it's bad enough crossing the street in pedestrian-heavy areas, and it gets worse in the boroughs where the roads seem less crowded. And to hark back to high school, friends don't let friends drive drunk.
Photo of car suspected in a hit-and-run by Newsday
