Car careens into scaffolding after reportedly running red light

The silence of a peaceful evening in Bay Ridge was punctured when a speeding livery cab crashed into and demolished scaffolding along the front of a building at 79th Street and Fourth Avenue during the late afternoon of Monday, January 7.

The driver was allegedly speeding through a red light when he hit the door of another car, veered off the sidewalk and smashed into the scaffolding in front of an apartment building.

“I was driving [along Fourth Avenue] when I saw the guy speed through the red light,” said eyewitness driver and Sheepshead Bay resident Sheila Yaruss. “He slammed into my door. It all happened so fast.

“Just look at this car,” she added, gesturing toward the wreckage. “I mean, someone going that fast…you just don’t do it.”

Fortunately enough, the accident yielded no serious injuries, according to the 68th Precinct.

While some residents reacted to the neighborhood’s recent string of car accidents with consternation, others were unfazed.

“The most dangerous avenue in Bay Ridge,” remarked one resident under this newspaper’s Facebook posting of a photo from the crash scene.

“They’re constantly running red lights in the neighborhood,” remarked another. “People don’t care anymore but once a child gets hit is when someone wants to do something about it. Shouldn’t be that way. Should be stopped before that has the chance to happen.”

Nonetheless, “I can’t say that it worries me, at least not yet,” said Pastor Craig Miller of Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, located only a couple of blocks away from the scene of the accident.

Traffic along Fourth Avenue has actually been the subject of much discussion and debate over the past several years. Community Board 10 founded a subcommittee on pedestrian safety to deal with problems along the strip, in particular, as well as elsewhere in the neighborhood, and the city’s Department of Transportation, working with Borough President Marty Markowitz’s office as well as Community Boards 6, 7 and 10 has been working on a wide range of issues along the thoroughfare, including safety.