A man was biking along the Henry Hudson Parkway when he was hit by a car and killed, according to police.
The unidentified cyclist was heading south on the highway sometime late on Wednesday or early Thursday morning when he was hit by a southbound Lexus driven by Cho Young, a 73-year-old from New Jersey, at 104th Street. The cyclist was taken to Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Young remained on the scene “with no apparent criminality regarding the collision,” police said. He was, however, charged with driving with a suspended license. The NYPD Highway Collision Investigation Squad is investigating.
In so many accidents involving cars, the contributing negligence of the pedestrians or cyclists is never figured in. I wonder how Transportation Alternatives and CB7 will spin this.
When you are behind the wheel of a several-ton vehicle, it’s like a holding a loaded gun. Drivers need to be extremely vigilant and take that responsibility seriously. Given that the driver’s license was expired, it’s sadly not shocking that he may not understand the safety issues associated with cars. Cars kill 40,000 people every year in America, so drivers should know they are controlling a dangerous machine and act accordingly.
DEFINITELY!! To quote the above: “The … cyclist was heading south ON THE HIGHWAY sometime late on Wednesday or early Thursday morning….”
WHY would any reasonable person BICYCLE on a notoriously DANGEROUS high-speed highway in the DARK of night when there is a BICYCLE-DEDICATED Greenway (bike path) available just below?
Not only did the cyclist die, but the person who hit him will have to live with this memory!
This is beyond negligence on the part of the bicyclist.
Transportation Alternatives will demand a protected “bike” lane on the Henry Hudson.
Nobody should ride a bicycle on the highway.
Nobody should be driving with a suspended license.
True in theory but my liscence was suspended because the state thought my insurance had lapsed when really I had changed carriers. This was a clerical error on their part. It didn’t mean I was a bad driver. And it takes some time for them to inform you by mail that your liscence is suspended. This driver may not have even known.
Considering there are no charges except for the expired license, it sounds like it’s been figured in.
IDK what this guy was doing on the highway. A few days someone died riding an e-bike in the center lane of the Belt Parkway at 1:00 in the morning. That driver and his passengers then pulled over the car and fled on foot.
“The unidentified cyclist was heading south on the highway…”
If the details of the story are correct the cyclist was riding on the Henry Hudson Parkway. This is a six lane highway where bicycle riding is not permitted.
I know, that’s how I read it. You’d have to be crazy to ride a bike on the HH!
Go there and you’ll see that the signalisation is confusing. The bike path is indicated on the same way than the highway but bikers have to take the sidewalk rather than the road. This accident is the responsibility of DOT.
Maybe so, but once the biker was on the HH, how hard would it have been for him to lift the bike over the guardrail and get onto the Greenway, where bikes belong? The fact that he got there through confusion or bad signage is no explanation for why he continued on the highway in what was an obviously dangerous situation.
Because several times, including on the UWS, the driver was speeding, running a red light, drunk, or otherwise distracted. The onus of safety rests on the operator of heavy machinery.
Bicycles are not intended for highways for God’s sake!! Even motorcyclists put themselves in danger for doing the same.
Was he on the bike path or the highway itself ? If he was on the highway, he was out of his mind! But if he was on the bike path the car would have had to had jumped the fence.
I think you answered your own question since a jumping car was not one of the details of the story as reported…
well played
The story doesn’t make it clear at all. I bike and run on that path at least twice a week. At 104th st the highway and the path are a few feet apart. If he was ON the highway, the headline should be “drunken idiot on bike rides on highway and unsurprisingly gets killed!” A headline like “Man Killed while Citibiking…” implies he was doing nothing wrong.
If, in the middle of night, you are riding a bike ON the HHP (as opposed to on the paved fenced bike lane immediately next to the southbound lanes, by the river), it may be that you are in some way inviting a driver, especially a sleepy or impaired or license-suspended driver, to do you harm…. Whatever the case, a very very sad story on all counts, (though perhaps Mr. Young needed extra incentive to stop driving (?)) Terrible.
We live on Riverside Blvd. and 2 – 3 times, I have seen people riding Citibikes southbound on the elevated portion of the West Side Highway. It is mind boggling why thy would do that in the first place and on top of that, there is a bike trail next to the highway. I’ve only witnessed this during the day time but cars were hard braking and swerving to avoid collision. At midnight, it would be only more difficult to avoid some, especially if the car was boxed in.
I wonder if they get confused by the poorly marked and frequently diverted bike path and accidentally wind up on the highway? The current state of the bike path in the 70s is a disgrace.
People driving without a license and get into an accident should go to jail. Someone who lost their license or does not have legally required insurance, does not have a right to drive. Whether or not the cyclist should have been on the highway, the person without a license should not be driving. There is a reason their license was suspended in the first place.
A license can be suspended for any number of administrative reasons, not just for driving by violations. Given that New Jersey seems incapable of issuing real license plates, I would wait for more details before you accuse this driver of a crime.
Maybe cyclists get confused and take an entrance ramp that looks safe, then can’t find a way back? Many years ago I found myself in bridge traffic that way, long before bike lanes were common. Turning around seemed even more dangerous than ploughing ahead and there was no exit ’til the other side.
There is a point on the Greenway at the foot of 125th St where this could happen. Riding downtown on the Greenway, you pass the old Fairway on your left and the West Harlem Piers on your right. Then you come to a point where the Greenway narrows and goes uphill to continue alongside the HHP. That point is adjacent to an entrance to the southbound lanes of the HHP. In daylight, I can’t imagine anyone confusing the two. The signage is very clear. But at night, I suppose it might happen, especially if the rider was disoriented or impaired. The fact that the accident occurred a short distance short of this point suggests that this might be how the cyclist got onto the parkway.
But how does that explain the rider getting over to the left lane and being at 104 street?
If you accidentally get on at 125, by about 122 you’re riding next to a 2 – 3 foot metal crash guard on your right, all you have to do is dismount and pull the bike over the barrier, and you’re back on the Greenway, a mile north of where this happened.
How do you know the deceased was riding in the left lane? I do not see it mentioned here nor are there linked articles.
Sad for the man who was killed and the people who loved him. Sad for the man who chose to drive with a suspended license and ended up taking a life. He’ll have to live with that choice forever. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer
I can’t believe the comments here. THE MAN WAS RIDING A CITIBIKE ON THE HIGHWAY. AT NIGHT.
Even worse, it’s a parkway, which means no requirement for shoulders and minimum lane width…
If you jump out of a plane without a parachute, you’ll probably die too.
(Although there have been stories of people miraculously surviving…)
I spoke to one of the fire fighters from Rescue 1 once. He said there are 3 things you should never do in NYC.
1. Stand closer than 6′ from the edge of a subway platform.
2. Get out of your car to help someone on the Henry Hudson.
3. Ride a bike in Manhattan.
The victim here seems to be a kind of hybrid between #2 and #3.
Very sad and tragic for all parties but unfortunately unsurprising.
The anti-car rhetoric is all a part of a neo-feudalist and corporate feudalist scheme to destroy what is left of the middle class and to make sure that we are all serfs to big tech. Transportation Alternatives and other bike lobby groups are patsies for large corporate interests.
Do the auto manufacturers and oil companies that supply their fuel count as “large corporate interests”? I suspect that they are bigger than the feared and dreaded Big Bicycle Lobby.