What to Know
- Video obtained exclusively by News 4 shows a car being sheared in half on a Staten Island roadway where residents asked for a stoplight
- The city DOT declined that request last year, but said it follows strict federal guidelines for lights
- The car's driver is expected to survive; a passenger was in critical condition, but has since been upgraded to stable condition
Two people were hurt – one of them critically – after an out-of-control car slammed into a tree and sent pedestrians running for cover in a horrifying crash on Staten Island that was caught on camera.
Authorities said they think the 20-year-old driver was speeding at the time of the crash on Henderson Avenue in Randall Manor that ripped the car in half on Monday afternoon. A passenger was thrown from the car and was in critical condition; the driver was also injured but is expected to survive. Both have since been upgraded to stable condition.
Footage from the scene obtained exclusively by News 4 shows the car come screaming down the roadway at what appears to be a high rate of speed. Seconds before the wreck, the vehicle fishtails and skids into a tree just off the roadway.
The impact slices the car in two, with the back half of the vehicle violently rolling into a yard. As the dust settles, a pair of onlookers can be seen running for cover.
Residents in the neighborhood said the crash isn’t the first they’d seen on the stretch: The city’s Vision Zero website shows there have been 8 vehicle-related injuries on the half-mile stretch between 2015 and 2017.
“People are constantly speeding up and down the road,” said Michelle Gerwer.
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She added that Monday’s crash was “when children were getting out of school. That’s the thing that really concerns me. We’re right here on the edge of the park.”
Gerwer said the neighborhood had asked for a traffic light to be installed last year, but the city Department of Transportation declined the request.
The DOT said it followed federal guidelines in responding to the request and that Staten Island saw decreases in traffic fatalities for the second straight year in 2017.
