MTA Bus Driver Arrested After Fatally Striking 81-Yr-Old Woman In Bensonhurst
Sept. 6, 2018, 1:38 p.m.
The driver was heading west on Stillwell and turned right onto Bay Parkway when he hit the senior citizen.
An MTA bus driver hit a woman in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening, fatally striking her while she was crossing the street inside a marked crosswalk, according to the NYPD.
Just after 8 p.m., police arrived at the intersection of Stillwell Avenue and Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst, and found 81-year-old Yu Qing Chen "unconscious and unresponsive with head trauma." EMS took her to Maimonides Hospital, where she eventually died from her injuries. The NYPD says the bus driver, 62-year-old Audley Smith, was heading west on Stillwell and turned right onto Bay Parkway when he hit Chen.
Smith stayed on the scene and was later arrested and charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.
NBC New York reports that the bus line in question was the B6, and that the driver was treated for trauma at Maimonides, but authorities could not confirm either detail.
In early March, the Post reported that MTA buses had averaged an astounding 23 incidents per day since 2015, for a total of 21,823 "crashes, collisions, and other mishaps" in 31 months. Those episodes injured nearly 3 people daily, and resulted in 14 deaths. The MTA had not responded to request for comment about the Wednesday night collision by the time of publication, but we will update if we hear back.
