A Staten Island woman has been arrested and charged with failure to yield after striking three pedestrians with her car while attempting to make a left turn on Saturday night, according to police.
A 25-year-old woman and two four-year-old children were hit while walking in the crosswalk at Vanderbilt Avenue and Oswood Avenue at 6:22 p.m., police said. Witnesses say that one child was knocked unconscious in the crash, and all three were rushed to Staten Island University Hospital North.
The other child and the 25-year-old—who is believed to be a family friend of the children—suffered minor injuries. All three victims are currently in stable condition and expected to survive, police said.
"The little kids jumped in front of the car," a neighbor who witnessed the crash told PIX11. "And the car hit her. The little girl wasn't breathing. I prayed over her and then she went to the hospital."
Elizabeth Johnson, the 56-year-old driver, was allegedly trying to make a left turn onto Vanderbilt Avenue when she struck the three pedestrians. She remained on the scene, and was arrested and charged with failure to yield, according to police.
Since Vision Zero's Right-of-Way law went into effect 2014, that failure to yield charge—now a criminal misdemeanor—has become an increasingly popular tool for charging reckless drivers who kill or injure pedestrians. According to the Staten Island Advance, 1,189 failure to yield tickets were written in the borough last year, compared to just 103 in 2013.
