Brian Spira, an investment banker from The Bronx (NYC) was charged yesterday with failing to yield when he fatally struck a 99-year-old woman at a crosswalk last summer, according to police.
Spira, a 54-year-old Riverdale resident, was also charged with failing to operate with due care causing the accident at 8:30 a.m. on July 27, 2022 that killed Bernice Schwartz at the intersection of Oxford St. and W. 235th St. The victim was a block from her home and was just months away from her 100th birthday.
At the time of the hit-and-run Schwartz was returning home from grocery shopping when Spira struck her while making a left turn in his 2022 Mazda CX9 SUV, fatally injuring her, according to NYPD.
The victim sustained multiple head injuries and died at St. Barnabas Hospital a short time later. Spira remained in place. It is not clear why it took her so many months to charge the driver.
Schwartz’s family could not be reached for comment, he said. Daily News. All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
In addition to armed violence, traffic accidents are another great challenge for Mayor Eric Adams. This is despite “Vision Zero”, a road safety plan created in 2014 by then-new mayor Bill de Blasio, who promised to make the city safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists with a goal of zero deaths. by 2024.
But 2022 was a grim year on New York asphalt in all five boroughs. From January 1 to July 31, about 150 people were killed in traffic accidents, according to the DOT. In particular, there was a 129% increase in hit and run incidents.
New York City had already experienced a 35% increase in traffic accidents in April 2022, the NYPD alerted. At the end of that month there was a tragic streak with an average of one person killed by being run over every day.
In 2023, in addition to cyclists, several pedestrians have been killed in NYC, including three on the same night earlier this month, one of them a 62-year-old Hispanic in East Harlem. Days later, an unlicensed driver fatally struck a teenage bicyclist in Queens and fled.
In March Elizabeth “Liz” Pérez, a 60-year-old woman, died when she was crossing a street in Brooklyn (NYC) when she was struck by a young Hispanic driver without a license who fled and was later arrested. Also that month three people were rushed to the hospital after a motorcycle accident in the Bronx and one of them died: a 72-year-old woman.