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In this photo from NJ.com, investigators use a sheet to hide the mangled body of Leyla Kahn, 60, on Aug. 7, 2014, after she was struck in a downtown Leonia crosswalk and dragged for 71 feet as horrified onlookers tried to alert the driver of the small school bus that ran her down.
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| A staged photo from the website of a personal injury lawyer in Florida. Pedestrian accident attorneys around the country use graphic though staged photos of bloody victims who were knocked down in crosswalks. |
-- HACKENSACK, N.J.
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
A front-page column in The Record reporting 2017 could be one of the worst years on record for pedestrian deaths was alarming enough.
But the Road Warrior column that ran 10 days ago muddled the issue by including motorcycle fatalities, as well as "passenger and teen deaths" in cars.
Staff Writer John Cichowski (aka The Road Warrior) has been covering vehicle and pedestrian fatalities for more than 14 years, as part of his so-called transportation beat.
But nowhere in his Dec. 18 column does he ask state officials whether criminal penalties like death by auto would act as a deterrent to drivers who ignore the 2010 state law requiring them to come to a full stop, and yield to a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk.
A driver can be charged with death by auto when he or she "acted recklessly or with a conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death would result from his [or her] driving conduct."
Death by auto is a second-degree crime punishable by 10 years in state prison and a fine of $200,000.
Confusion reigns
After saying there were 261 pedestrian deaths in 1975, Cichowski reports they were reduced "largely because of safety innovations such as seat belts, airbags, road improvements," and the 2010 law requiring drivers "to stop, not simply yield for pedestrians in marked crosswalks."
But the reporter never explains how seat belts and airbags -- which protect drivers and their passengers -- could possibly help reduce pedestrian deaths.
Leyla Kahn
In September 2015, about a year and a month after Leyla Kahn, 60, was killed crossing Broad Avenue in downtown Leonia, former minibus driver Esperanza Jaramillo of Tenafly pleaded guilty in municipal court.
She admitted to failure to yield to a pedestrian who had the right of way, and driving a vehicle with badly worn tires.
She admitted to failure to yield to a pedestrian who had the right of way, and driving a vehicle with badly worn tires.
She was fined $328. Saying the punishment was too light, the judge also imposed a 180-day license suspension on Jaramillo.
The Record reported on Sept. 22, 2015, that Jaramillo had received summonses for nine motor vehicle violations, and that her driver's license had been suspended five times since 1992.
In a September 2016 column, the confused and error-prone Chickowski allowed Leonia's police chief to deflect attention away from what his officers could have done to prevent Kahn's death:
Other fatalities
Kahn was far from the only pedestrian killed in a crosswalk in the last several years.
Weiqi Wang, 27, who had completed graduate studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, was killed in a crosswalk on Nov. 21, 2016.
A New Milford man was charged with careless driving, failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk and having an obstructed view.
The woman, who was from China, died in a hospital.
No charges were filed against a detective in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office after his unmarked Ford Crown Victoria struck and killed Hue D. Dang, 64, of Hackensack a few blocks from her apartment on March 9, 2015.
Felicia L. Sasso, 93, was killed by a tractor-trailer in downtown Teaneck on June 25, 2016.
Police said Sasso was in a crosswalk when she was struck by the truck turning into American Legion Drive from Cedar Lane.
Two days after the accident, police said no charges had been filed against the driver, but "the crash remains under investigation."
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