MAMARONECK ‒ A 67-year-old woman who was injured when she was struck by a car Saturday while crossing Mamaroneck Avenue at Prospect Street ‒ just down the hill from the village police station ‒ was in the crosswalk when the incident occurred at 10:30 a.m. Two months ago, a mother and son were struck and killed by a school mini-bus while crossing Mamaroneck Avenue in a different crosswalk.
The driver in Saturday's incident, like the bus driver on June 20, was turning left onto Mamaroneck Avenue when the pedestrian was struck. Unlike with the bus crash, the 22-year-old driver in Saturday's crash did not stop to check on the woman she struck, did not call 911 and left the scene, village police said in a news release.
A driver who saw the crash pursued the car and stopped the driver on Post Road, where police arrested the 22-year-old woman from Larchmont. She was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving a personal injury, a misdemeanor, and failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, a traffic infraction. She was released on her own recognizance with a future court date.
The pedestrian suffered blunt force trauma to the body and was taken to Montefiore Hospital in New Rochelle, where she was treated and released.
Fatal Mamaroneck bus crash handled differently, without charges
In the June 20 incident at New Street, the Royal Coach Lines bus driver had a green light to turn left from New Street onto Mamaroneck Avenue when he struck Molly Donovan and Mamaroneck Avenue School kindergartner Mikey Volpe, who were in the crosswalk, police said. The 6-year-old was killed instantly; Donovan, days away from her 44th birthday, died within hours.
Unlike Saturday's incident, where there was an immediate arrest and two charges, village police called the double-fatal incident "a tragic accident" and declined to charge — or even identify — the minibus driver , a 69-year-old man from Mount Vernon.
"Not a 'tragic accident'": Family in fatal Mamaroneck crosswalk crash calls for justice for mom, son who died
When Police Chief Sandra DiRuzza was asked Tuesday why two similar cases — a driver turning left onto Mamaroneck Avenue and striking pedestrians in the crosswalk — were treated differently, why the bus driver wasn't charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian, the response came from police spokesman Lt. P.J. Trujillo.
"That (June 20) case was more complicated and additional factors had to be investigated," Trujillo replied in an email. "When the investigation is concluded, that might be one of the outcomes."
Meanwhile, Westchester County's accident investigation team has sent its final report on the double-fatal crash to village police.
Trujillo on Friday said the report, which combines the crime-scene canvassing of witnesses by village officers and detectives and an accident reconstruction by county police, "will not be released until it has been reviewed by this department and the Westchester County DA's office and the investigation is discussed with the family."
Pedestrian group presses county for pedestrian protections
The latest pedestrian-crosswalk incident prompted Melanie Fernandez, of the Safe Streets Mamaroneck pedestrian advocacy group, to write to county leaders, including Westchester County Executive George Latimer and Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins.
Fernandez's group successfully lobbied the county — which owns Mamaroneck Avenue — to change the traffic-light pattern at the New Street intersection where the mother and son were killed. The new light pattern, called "exclusive pedestrian phase," stops vehicle traffic in all directions while pedestrians have sole use of the intersection.
In her letter Tuesday, Fernandez renewed her call for pedestrian-only lights all along Mamaroneck Avenue.
"We have been advocating for exclusive pedestrian phasing since we started," Fernandez wrote. "How many community members need to be injured or killed to make all the intersections from I-95 to the Harbor EPP? We reiterate the clear need for this safety measure. This accident happened on a Saturday morning. Seven days from now, (Mamaroneck Avenue School) students will be crossing in large numbers to get to their first day of school."
Catherine Cioffi, the county's communications director, said in a statement Tuesday: “We are fully committed to enhancing traffic safety on Mamaroneck Avenue and on all Westchester County roads. Any improvements made to Mamaroneck Avenue in the Village of Mamaroneck must be part of a broader effort to implement similar safety measures across hundreds of roads in Westchester County."
"While we have already made progress on safety enhancements near Mamaroneck Avenue School, this recent incident occurred nearly a mile away in the downtown area, expanding the scope of our review," Cioffi said. "This was a terrible tragedy, and we must carefully examine the specifics of what led to it. A full report of the incident is necessary to guide our next steps and ensure we are taking the most effective actions to prevent future occurrences.”
Peter D. Kramer is a 36-year staffer who writes long-form narratives on a variety of topics. He has written recently about an Orange County cold-case murder, about affordability and development, and breaking news. His story looking back on the Oak Street fire in Yonkers won a national Headliner Award for outstanding news specials/feature column. Reach him at pkramer@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Charges filed in latest Mamaroneck pedestrian crash, unlike bus strike that killed two
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