An MTA bus driver fatally struck a 67-year-old cyclist in Flatbush on Tuesday, making him the second cyclist killed so far in 2020.
A police spokesperson said the deadly collision happened around 4:30 p.m. at the intersection of Rogers Avenue and Clarendon Road. According to the preliminary investigation, cyclist Tadeusz Czajkowski was heading north on Rogers in the right lane when he attempted to make a left turn onto Clarendon and was struck by an unnamed 47-year-old MTA bus driver who was also traveling northbound and was going straight through the intersection.
The NYPD says Czajkowski, a Greenpoint resident, was sideswiped by the bus and thrown to the pavement. He was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County, where he was pronounced dead.
The bus driver stayed at the scene and has not been charged. Police add that no arrests have been made and the investigation remains ongoing.
The MTA said in a statement that this was "a tragic incident for all involved and we are cooperating fully with the NYPD investigation."
Streetsblog reported that last year there were "38 crashes, injuring one pedestrian, three cyclists and 21 motorists, in just a four-block stretch of Rogers Avenue centered on Clarendon, according to Crashmapper."
“Amid this public health pandemic, our city must do everything in its power to avoid preventable deaths, like traffic crashes, and reduce the burden on our healthcare system,” said Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Danny Harris. “Our city must protect vulnerable street users, like cyclists, by building a protected and connected network of bike lanes, especially as more New Yorkers are using bikes for and to travel to essential work.”
In January, a Brooklyn cyclist was killed by an illegally turning truck driver in East Williamsburg, becoming the first cyclist fatality of the year. In 2019, there were 28 cyclists killed in crashes (up from 10 in 2018), with 218 total traffic fatalities. You can read tributes to those cyclists killed last year here.
