News: Long Island Boy Killed by Teen’s Vehicle
(Long Island, N.Y.) A nine-year-old boy was struck and killed by a car on Thursday as he was riding his bicycle along the sidewalk. Close to his Floral Park home, the boy had been with his mother and their two dogs when the accident occurred. The driver of the vehicle was a sixteen-year-old girl who had received her learner’s permit within the past few weeks.
The boy’s wake was held yesterday and his funeral mass was held this morning. Reports stated that hundreds attended the service. Our Lady of Victory Church conducted a prayer service and remembered the nine-year-old.
The teen driver had been receiving a lesson from her mother during the time of the incident. At roughly six-thirty on Thursday evening her Nissan SUV struck the boy and his forty-nine-year-old mother. She was hit on her left side and grazed by the vehicle, while her son was struck directly.
The accident occurred on the corner of Plainfield Avenue and Martha Terrace. The woman was treated and released at the local Long Island Jewish Medical Center, where her son was later pronounced dead. No charges have been filed against the teen.
Allegedly, the sixteen-year-old had been making a wide turn when she lost control of the vehicle and jumped the curb where the boy was riding. Authorities believe that she accidentally stepped on the gas instead of the brakes, and ran over the nine-year-old. Before coming to a stop, the vehicle also struck another car, pushing it fifty feet.
Reports stated that the boy’s mother said that the vehicle struck from behind, so that she didn’t see it coming, and didn’t know what happened after. She saw her son get hit on the bicycle. She claimed that it all happened so fast and that the car spun her and took her down.
Neither occupant of the vehicle suffered any injuries, and the sixteen-year-old from New Hyde Park is not expected to face any criminal charges. Some reports stated that both mother and son had been hearing impaired. Many claim that the area, filled with houses and people, was a poor choice for a driving lesson.
It’s unclear why the teen was practicing in the residential place of Martha Terrace instead of in a less busy location such as a vacant parking lot. Also, some claim that the only safe way to teach teens to drive is through instructed lessons, which normally run about $60/hour and utilize vehicles with passenger-side breaks. Others disagree, and claim that parents should be entitled to instruct their children.
One report claimed that a resident from Martha Terrace held the boy after the accident and told him to hang on and that he’d be okay. The nine-year-old made the cover of Newsday this week and balloons and flowers now decorate the scene of the tragedy. Friends and family members of the boy claimed he loved soccer and Little League.
This is the second major accident to shake residents of the Floral Park community in less than a year. Last July, five Floral Park young adults were involved in a fatal crash when the twenty-year-old driver lost control of the vehicle. The car flipped before hitting a tree off the southbound shoulder of the Meadowbrook State Parkway, killing the driver’s twenty-two-year-old brother and a nineteen-year-old friend and her twenty-two-year-old sister. All of the occupants were on their way to work as camp counselors at the Lido Beach Anchor Camp for the disabled.
