83-year-old woman killed by dump truck driver in Boerum Hill • Brooklyn Paper

According to the New York Police Department, an 83-year-old woman was fatally struck by a dump truck driver in Boerum Hill on Wednesday afternoon.

The accident occurred around 11:30 a.m., police said, as Gowanus Houses resident Carolyn Cox was crossing in the middle of Bond Street toward Butler Street. As she was crossing the street, the driver of a 2018 Kenworth dump truck turned right onto Bond Street from Butler Street and struck her with the passenger side of the vehicle.

Police said the driver, whose identity has not yet been released, continued driving but stopped at the corner of Third Avenue and Bergen Street, about a half-mile from the accident scene.

Cox was found unconscious and unresponsive in the street and taken to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The investigation is ongoing, but no arrests have been made.

The intersection of Bond Street and Butler Street is a T-intersection – Butler Street meets Bond Street but does not continue on the other side. Although there is a north-south crossing on the other side of Butler Street, there is no east-west pedestrian crossing on Bond Street where Cox crossed. There is a stop sign for eastbound traffic turning onto Bond Street from Butler Street, as the dump truck driver did.

According to the NYC Crash Mapper, three accidents have been reported at this intersection in the last five years, injuring three pedestrians.

“This tragedy underscores the urgent need to design all of our streets with safety in mind, including features such as curb extensions, clearly marked and raised crosswalks, and general daylighting, and to implement the lower speed limits made possible by the recent passage of Sammy’s Law as soon as possible,” Brooklyn Community Board 6 said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the victim and her family and friends this evening.”

Six people have been struck and killed by dump trucks in New York City this year, according to the road safety group Transportation Alternatives. In March, a 58-year-old woman was struck and killed by a dump truck in Flatbush – the same truck that killed a school crossing guard in Queens in 2023, according to the New York Daily News.

Two pedestrians – ages 75 and 77 – were killed by dump trucks in South Brooklyn last year within just four months.

“We need marked crosswalks at every intersection – including and especially on all three sides of these T-junctions,” TransAlt representative Elizabeth Adams said in a statement. “In September, the Department of Transportation proposed a rule prohibiting vehicles from blocking pedestrian crossings at unmarked crosswalks, but has not yet moved forward.”

Hours after Cox’s death, in a separate incident in Queens, an 8-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl were struck and killed by a delivery truck driver. The 16-year-old died, while the 8-year-old was hospitalized with serious injuries.

“In the worst traffic accident year in over a decade, two more families are mourning completely preventable losses, and we are angry and demanding more from our city’s leaders,” Adams said. “We need real action and real leadership to protect our youngest and oldest pedestrians.”