A nineteen-year-old was arrested Tuesday for for fatally striking bicycle advocate, Adam Uster on May 1 on Franklin Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Angel Mejia of Staten Island was charged on two counts of motor vehicle failure to yield to pedestrian or bicyclist, according to the NYPD.
On the day of the crash, Uster, 39, was returning home from a grocery run in an unprotected bike lane on Franklin Avenue when Mejia hit him while he turned his Isuzu flatbed truck onto Lexington Avenue, cops said. Mejia remained at the scene and was not injured. Medics rushed Uster to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Failure to yield is a vehicular traffic law violation charged with fines of up to $500 or 15 days in prison.
Uster was a member of Transportation Alternatives, an organization that pushes for changes in public policy and street design to make the city safer for cyclists.
At least 20 people have died biking in New York City so far this year. These have been the deadliest first eight months of a year in history, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. Exactly a month after Uster’s death, a cyclist was struck and killed by an SUV in Sheepshead Bay.
Eighteen cyclists died in 2019, when former Mayor Bill de Blasio declared the surge an emergency. The death toll hit 20 in 2012, the first full year the city started keeping detailed records after a 2011 law mandating officials count fatalities.
“The New York City Council has an opportunity to more quickly install its bike infrastructure,” reads the Tranportation Alternatives website’s petition to urge council members to vote “yes” to Intro. 417, a bill that would expedite bike lane installation projects. “We can save lives and build out a full network of safe bike infrastructure by supporting common-sense legislation like this as we push for a city that prioritizes people walking, biking and taking public transit.”
