Nov. 6, 2023 By Bill Parry
A motorcyclist from the Rockaways was struck and killed by an SUV driver making an illegal U-turn on Cross Bay Boulevard in Howard Beach early Monday morning, according to the NYPD.
Police from the 106th Precinct responded to a 911 call of a vehicle collision at the intersection of 165th Avenue and Cross Bay Boulevard just before 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 6 when they discovered the motorcyclist unconscious on the roadway. EMS responded to the scene and transported the rider to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The motorcyclist was later identified as Raiquel Tapia-Villar, 29, of Beach 54th Street in Arverne.
A preliminary investigation by the NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad determined that a 24-year-old man was traveling northbound on Cross Bay Boulevard in a 2020 BMW X3 when he made an illegal U-turn from the left turn bay at the intersection of 165th Avenue, disobeying a posted no U-turn sign to travel southbound on Cross Bay Boulevard. Tapia-Villar was riding a 2004 Honda CBR 1000 motorcycle that was traveling southbound on Cross Bay Boulevard at an apparent high rate of speed heading toward the Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge when he slammed into the SUV, police said.
The driver of the BMW X3 remained at the scene of the collision and was not immediately charged, but the investigation remains ongoing by the NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad.