By Gus Saltonstall
Two people are dead, and multiple others are injured after an intoxicated driver jumped a curb on the Upper West Side with his car on Friday evening and collided with a group of pedestrians, a police spokesperson told West Side Rag.
Elvin Suarez, 61, was driving a Mercedes-Benz northbound on Amsterdam Avenue around 6 p.m. on Friday, when he collided with a parked car on West 108th Street, police said. He then continued traveling up the avenue when he lost control and drove over a pedestrian island and onto the sidewalk on the northwest corner of West 109th Street, where he struck four pedestrians, as well as a parked van that a man was sitting in the front seat of, police said.
Police sources told the New York Daily News that Suarez reached 80 MPH in the moments leading up to the crash.
All six of the people involved were rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside, where Upper West Sider Jason Negron, 46, and Michael Saint-Hilaire, 35, were pronounced dead, NYPD said.
Suarez, and the three other men injured in the crash, are all listed in stable condition as of Saturday morning, police added.
Suarez, who is also an Upper West Side resident, was arrested on Friday night and charged with two counts of manslaughter, three counts of vehicular manslaughter, two counts of vehicular assault, and driving while intoxicated, police said.
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Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. Every year, several hundred people are killed on New York City streets, nearly all by motor vehicles.
Several weeks ago, CB7’s “Public Safety Task Force” conducted a survey with the question, “Which safety issue concerns you most on the Upper West Side?” They specifically listed “Reckless e-bikes or scooters,”
but only listed cars within an “other” category — “Other traffic safety concerns (cars, trucks, speeding).”
Recognizing that mopeds and e-bikes are a real issue and we need to do what we can to keep the public safe, we can’t lose focus on the scourge of motor vehicles and the destruction their drivers cause, and we need to make sure that protecting our community from motor vehicles remains our #1 focus for street safety.
Let me get this straight…So an individual decided to drink and drive and took two lives and destroyed many others including his…and you actually blame the car? Wow.
It’s the age old “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument.
We need traffic calming measures.
Square wheels
I don’t see how you made that inference. This was an idiot drunk driver who should have the book thrown at him. Nothing more. Nothing less
While I agree with your comment, how could an incident like this have been prevented?
The NYPD has to make an honest and real effort to ticket dangerous behavior by drivers and cyclists. The focus needs to be on dangerous behavior and not just low hanging fruit for show. After these types of incidents, they usually go out and ticket people who are easy to catch – like cyclists who go through a red light at an empty T intersection. They need to focus on writing A LOT of tickets for failure to yield, both to drivers and cyclists. I see a lot of bad behavior by both drivers and cyclists that goes ignored by the NYPD. Any car or motorcycle that has a blocked plate in any way needs to be pulled over and ticketed. No more leaves or paper over plates, or the corners bent up, etc. Cops on patrol in radio cars should pull people over for blocked or damaged plates or for failure to yield, not just the cops on traffic duty. Speeding on city streets is a problem. A much greater issue than speeding on the highways. The highway patrol division should start focusing on the local avenues rather than the expressways. Truck rules should also be enforced so no 53’ trailers are in the city without a special permit – like the law says, and trucks should remain only on truck routes. While this specific instance might not have been prevented, many others can be.
Easily ! It’s called proper infrastructure. Have you heard of bollards ? They are everywhere in Europe. They prevent vehicles from driving onto sidewalks to protect people 🙂
Fwiw, unfortunately the bollards at the JCC and Temple Emanuel are definitely not there to prevent *accidents*
You can see them at Lincoln Center and on two sides of Temple Emanuel. They DO work….
I don’t understand why people continually compare our infrastructure with other countries. Whether you’re in France or NYC a bollard absolutely does NOT stop a car going over 100 mph. 😞
It depends on the build of the bollard, but a bollard could definitely stop an SUV traveling at 100mph from getting up on a curb if hit at an angle and not straight on. The ones in front of the JCC, for example, would stop a fully loaded truck hitting straight on. But any bollards would have definitely worked in this case because it wasn’t a straight on crash, it was at an angle. The trouble is it is impractical to install bollards along every single sidewalk. The parked cars along the street are supposed to provide that protection. But this car hit a pedestrian island. Maybe there could be bollards on the pedestrian islands?
Thanks for the info! I’ve only ever seen them on the interstate and they definitely didn’t flip the cars as expected. It’s horrific to think of anything going fast enough to do that on a city street. 😣
But it does stop them from jumping the curb to kill pedestrians.
I didn’t mean a bollard won’t stop a driver from driving over 100 mph. I meant it will literally not stop a vehicle going at that speed. Anyone who gave a ‘thumbs up,’ has ever seen a fatal accident on the highway. 😞
Concrete Jersey barriers on highways are designed to flip cars that hit them so they do not cross into oncoming traffic. The faster the vehicle is moving, the easier it is to flip it. But we are not going to line our sidewalks with Jersey barriers.
Slow all traffic down to 20. How about enforcing the existing city wide speed limit of 25?
I don’t know where they got the number but Pix 11 says the car was going 108 mph.
https://pix11.com/news/suspected-drunk-driver-kills-2-injures-others-in-manhattan-nypd/
Even if that number is incorrect he was obviously going extraordinarily fast for a city street. Having a speed limit 5 or 10 mph lower would not have changed anything.
Unsafe drivers are habitually unsafe. I’m sure this is not the first time this guy broke the speed limit. Tightening up speed limits, strictly enforcing them with cameras, and removing vehicles from people who routinely break the law would get these people off the street before they kill someone.
You say “Slow all traffic down to 20” and “…enforcing the existing city wide speed limit of 25”. Which is it that you’re proposing? If the former, have you seen (or done) any analysis of the impact on traffic flow of this change?
Pathetic that there are so many readers of this blog that prefer to live in a community where this is more normal than kids riding their bikes to school. Rip out the car lanes so we can all safely move around. Condolences to the families of the deceased.
“… this is more normal…”
This is _not_ normal; that’s why it’s news and you’re reading about it on the WSR.
Correct. A drunk doing 100 mph is far from normal.
It’s a felony, as normal as bank robbery and kidnapping.
Every day in this city, people speed and/or drive drunk and cause life altering injuries to pedestrians. It’s so routine that when it happens, no changes are made. It’s normal and it shouldn’t be.
It has been reported that the driver was going 108 mph. Where did you see or hear anyone refer to that as normal behavior?
108 miles an hour! ?? Cant be true!
Really? And when you break a leg or back or have a heart attack how are you going to get to a hospital or anywhere else? I always walk everywhere, even from UWS to Tribeca, but your solution is impractical for the infirm, sick, families with children, etc…
It is 100% possible to have traffic calming and even pedestrianized streets while maintaining access and right-of-way for emergency vehicles. In many parts of the world this is the norm.
Who said this is normal? It isn’t!
Horrific. It just takes a moment for a distracted or drunk driver to kill pedestrians. More traffic calming measures would help to prevent further tragedies like this.
It has absolutely nothing to do with traffic calming measures. How about not drinking and driving?! 😞
EXACTLY.
How about not sitting outside at cafes, wining and dining, making it all look sexy, when it’s actually unhealthy?
Traffic calming measures like a protected bike lane separate from traffic by a pedestrian island and parked cars? That is exactly the set up this drunk driver plowed through before hitting people.
I’m curious what additional “traffic calming” measures you would have had in place that could have prevented an incident like this. ??
Narrower traffic lanes that help to keep traffic at a safer speed and more of those boulders or bollards that would stop the out of control vehicle before it careens onto the sidewalk.
The lanes are 10 feet wide. MTA buses are 8 1/2 feet wide. How narrow do you think the lanes can be?
Chicanes. Wider bike lanes. Speed limits that are enforced. I understand that car insurance is considered high. Maybe its too low. What are the minimum limits? When were they last changed.
You bring up a good point. Insurance minimums were last raised in 1995. They were raised to $25,000 minimum bodily injury liability. In today’s dollars, that should be about $55,000 based on actual inflation rates. But even that is too low.
wider bike lanes to be empty? So our food deliveries can arrive even faster? So the slow crossing pedestrians are even MORE at risk of being hit? What a great idea
Wider bike lanes with protected pedestrian islands (most are not well protected if protected at all) would actually shorten the crossing distance for slower pedestrians.
Metal bollards, speed bumps, chicanes, chokers. Check it out.
Throw the book at him. There is no excuse whatsoever to drink and drive in a this city.
Killed two and ruined who knows how many more lives. Let him rot in jail.
He has been charged with two counts of manslaughter, three counts of vehicular manslaughter, two counts of vehicular assault and DWI.
Why three counts of vehicular manslaughter if only two people were killed?
WSR – any clarification on this?
Curious if there were previous DWI issues the suspect was charged with ?
And yes it has everything to do with this.
That’s a block from that big fire a few months ago. Maybe all future street reconstruction projects should include bollards at the curb line.
The fire was on 107. The deaths occurred at 109th. One was a building fire; the other was vehicular homicide from someone who was DWI. That’s some elusive correlation.
He wasn’t making a correlation. He was just saying that since there was massive reconstruction that was going to be happening due to the fire, maybe it should include adding bollards to the sidewalk as part of the construction project. No correlation between the two events.
Horrible.
Tragic deaths.
Is there a Go Fund Me for the families?
Also – there is a news report that the driver and victims actually knew each other and hung out in the neighborhood
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-jason-negrons-family-after-tragedy
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-michael-saint-hilaires-family
One of the victims, Jason Negron, was a beloved longtime doorman at 110th and Broadway. He was a wonderful man and will be profoundly missed.
That’s so, so sad.
What building???
The 24th Precinct has written five DWI tickets all year. There is no enforcement on this issue. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/traffic_data/traffic-statistics/ts-en-us-024.pdf
You can bring this up Wednesday at the community policing meeting at 7 at the Ryan Center opp. Whole foods on 97th. I would but i cannot make it.
There has to be a real crackdown on reckless driving. That means speeding. That means FAILURE TO YIELD which kills many pedestrians, adults and children. No second chance after one DUI. With these repeat offenders, the car needs to be confiscated and after ascertaining that it hasn’t been stolen, crushed. Just the way those people were crushed yesterday. If crushing is good enough for people, it’s good enough for a hunk of metal. P.S. I rather doubt the car was going 108 miles per hour. Apparently the incident started on 108th Street. Is that where that number came from? Also, manslaughter sounds like a baseline. How do we know it wasn’t intentional? “Lost control of his car,” the police say. That’s giving the driver the benefit of the doubt. Driving a vehicle into a crowd because the driver is angry about something is not unheard of.
How awful. Motorists involved in such accidents, including cars that kill cyclists should never be allowed to drive again. Ever.
And it’s like that in every civilized country in world. Says a lot about this one.
In Spain people are driving under or at the speed limit. In the US the speed limit is considered advice. Why? Is gas too cheap?
I dont know where u came up with this idea. I spend a lot of time in Spain and I can tell you they drive over the speed limit constantly.
Horrific.
Deepest condolences to the families.
Incredibly the perpetrator Elvin Suarez, knew some of the victims as they lived in the neighborhood.
Elvin Suarez, 61, a “longtime resident of the neighborhood, tested at a .1 blood alcohol content, above the .08 legal limit for driving, a police source said.”
Wonder if there was prior DUI
There certainly was, as well as prior speeding – I’ve seen it from this car. Whether NYPD bothered to take note is a different question though
If we banned humans from NYC, we’d have far fewer homicides.
less gun violence, too.
Not condoning DWI, but I am curious if any of the other cars that he hit were double parked, the story just says parked cars? Something needs to be done about Double Parked cars particularly on Amsterdam and often on both sides of the street at the same time causing dangerous driving conditions. At the same time random alcohol and drug testing of drivers needs to be implemented which is common in many countries around the world.
And you thought bikers are hazardous.
The EVSA are curiously quiet when a driver kills people… don’t they care about pedestrian safety?
UWS Dad,
we are all strangers here….
How would anyone be categorized as EVSA?
I personally am waiting for GoFundMe info to contribute to these families.
That to me is a priority.
Not making assumptions or disparaging complete strangers.
Two things can be true. 1) drunk drivers are a hazard to anyone near a street 2)e-Bikes and e-Scotters shouod be liscenced and regulated.
besides drunk drivers, there are far more drivers who blow thru red lights at high speed. Stand at 96th and Broadway on a Friday afternoon at rush hour and 4 or 5 drivers pass a red light. Yet no cameras to fine them and maybe prevent it.
Why isn’t this murder. And why not “depraved indifference” charges?
In order to charge someone with murder there has to be intent, which I can’t imagine is the case here. You do bring up “depraved indifference” which is also a difficult standard to prove. In NY, the courts have generally ruled that drunk driving, even if outrageously reckless, generally does not constitute depraved indifference so you will rarely see a prosecutor bring murder charges based on depraved indifference against a drunk driver.
Please punish drunk driving.
This is so tragic, nothing will bring these 2 people back and who knows how serious the other injuries were. At least there is accountability for this drunk driver. 3 counts of vehicular manslaughter.
This is not the case if an e-vehicle riding recklessly at times 40mph on sidewalks, kills someone. There is 0 recourse and accountability for an e-vehicle crash which can and has resulted in deaths.
The city and state should pass laws to register any and all motorized vehicles that do not abide by common sense laws
Road blocks with mandatory breathalyzer tests on weekend nights would certainly show that the policy are serious about preventing drink driving deaths.
The car as of yesterday was parked outside the 24th precinct on the street, which I understand it’s part of an investigation but it’s still kind of creepy.
Please let us know if there is a go fund me or another way to help the families, who are surely struggling through this tragic time.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-jason-negrons-family-after-tragedy
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-michael-saint-hilaires-family
It’s been reported that the driver was friends with the victims & that they used to hang out on the corner of 109th St playing dominoes & drinking beer.
Life in prison =justice. He is useless to society on many levels.
Re traffic deaths in New York City. We are at historic lows. The city publishes a lot of data on this topic.
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-reach-all-time-low.shtml
The city counted 205 vehicle deaths in 2025. That’s a lot lower than was typical decades ago — in 1958, for example, 655 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the city. Though the decline hasn’t been in a straight line, the lower loss of life is striking even when you look at recent years. The city’s data shows 299 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2013, and 234 died in 2015,
Even with the decline, the data shows that most of those killed are pedestrians — the 111 pedestrians killed in 2025 made up 54 percent of the citywide total.
Will these men be classified as pedestrians? They were standing or sitting outside a barbershop talking. They weren’t walking on the sidewalk or crossing the street. If diners in a roadway shed are hit by a car are they classified as pedestrians? Kind of stretching the meaning of the word.
A pedestrian is anyone traveling on foot. It includes runners, walkers, people in wheelchairs, and people using inline skates or skateboards. If the walker sits down, he doesn’t cease to be a pedestrian.
There have been some inquiries as to how to support the families.
Here are links to fundraisers for two of the victims’ families
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-jason-negrons-family-after-tragedy
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-michael-saint-hilaires-family
WSR Commenters: “No, no you don’t understand, the e-bikes are the problem! Not the cars!”
You will never stop drunk driving. But if stopped and you’re drunk then an automatic two nights in jail and your car towed would be good. If you’re drunk and responsible for injury or death of others treat it like murder, which it is. Long Prison sentences.
Witnessed the aftermath of this crash, was there around 6:30 at 110th street. Horrific.