Yet another careless driver is getting away with running down a Hackensack woman

ANOTHER VICTIM: Carol Ventura, 76, was in a crosswalk when she was struck by one vehicle, then run over by a landscaping truck's trailer last week not far from her home in The Pierre Apartments on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, below. She died at the hospital.

 

A second pedestrian is killed

crossing the street at night

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- No criminal charges will be brought against the driver of a pickup truck who ran down a 76-year-old woman in a crosswalk on Passaic Street at Summit Avenue, police said.

On May 13 shortly after 8:30 p.m. -- described as "dusk" --  a second driver didn't see Carol Ventura lying on the pavement, and she was run over by a landscaping trailer his vehicle was pulling.

She was pronounced dead a short time later at Hackensack University Medical Center, according to news reports.

Ventura was at least the second pedestrian killed crossing the street in Hackensack since March.

Poor street maintenance and the absence of pedestrian safety measures are issues in both deaths. 

Hit-run death

On March 4, Lillian J. Holmes, 81, of Hackensack died after she was knocked down by a hit-run driver and struck by a second driver as she was crossing a darkened Polifly Road, between Sutton and Marvin avenues.

She was going to pick up a prescription at a CVS Pharmacy, family members said.

There is no painted crosswalk, traffic light or adequate street lighting where the hit-run crash occurred, even though there is an apartment building on one side of the 4-lane street leading to Route 80 and a busy pharmacy on the other.

The Fatal Accident Investigation Squad of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office still hasn't found the driver of the black BMW X-5 SUV that hit Holmes first before fleeing. The second driver stayed on the scene.

The deaths of the women are two more examples of drivers who kill pedestrians, but never face serious charges, and of streets -- many of them maintained by Bergen County -- that lack crosswalks, proper lighting, reflective crosswalk stripes or walk/no-walk signs.

In effect, many pedestrians are sitting ducks.

READ: Penalties for killing a driver 

don't act as a deterrent

Confused news reports

News stories from the Hackensack Daily Voice and Patch said Ventura, the victim, "had the right of way," quoting Hackensack Police Capt. Nicole Foley.

But in a story that also appeared on the front page of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, the clueless Joshua Jongsma of NorthJersey.com, The Record's website, quoted police as saying "they do not believe Ventura had a walk signal or the right of way when she crossed."

As the photo below clearly shows there is no walk/don't walk signal for the crosswalk the victim used.

Capt. Foley quoted an unidentified Rochelle Park man, 42, who was driving the pickup that first hit the woman, as saying he didn't see her.

That driver might face a traffic summons for failing to yield or stop for a pedestrian, and 2 points on his license. 

The second driver, a 51-year-old Paramus man, also said he didn't see the victim. He also wasn't identified.

"From 2010 to 2020, 14 pedestrians were killed in Hackensack, records show, including three last year," NorthJersey.com reported, but there was no mention of whether any of the drivers faced serious charges.

FADED PAINT, MISSING WALK/DON'T WALK SIGNAL: According to news reports, Carol Ventura of Hackensack was in this crosswalk on Passaic Street "shortly after 8:30 p.m." on May 13, 2021, when she was struck by a 2021 Dodge Ram pickup truck turning from southbound Summit Avenue, like the white sedan in this photo taken a few days later. The crosswalk paint is faded, and likely hard to see at night, and there is no don't walk sign to warn pedestrians about turning vehicles, which get a green arrow before the traffic light on Summit turns green.