Aug. 8, 2023 By Ben Brachfeld
A Queens teenager died Monday after being struck by an MTA bus while riding an electric scooter, capping off a deadly weekend on city streets for those on two wheels.
Police discovered 18-year-old Saad Mohammed lying in the roadway, with traumatic injuries, at 168th Street and 89th Avenue in Jamaica just after 9:30 p.m. Monday. The teen, a Howard Beach resident, was taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased.
The NYPD says Mohammed was riding a stand-up electric scooter westbound on 89th Avenue and entered the intersection against a red light, at the same time a Q20 bus was passing the crossing northbound on 168th Street.
At that time, Mohammed reportedly fell from his scooter to the roadway, right in the path of the bus’s front tires.
The 33-year-old bus operator remained at the scene; neither the driver nor any passengers were hurt. The MTA declined to comment. Eleven local bus routes saw delays overnight as a result of the collision.
The incident caps off a deadly weekend on the city’s streets for those riding on two wheels. Four people have died while riding motorcycles in the five boroughs since Thursday, including two who were struck by hit-and-run drivers, one in Harlem and another in Cambria Heights.
On Sunday, an unidentified scooter rider was killed after being T-boned by an Infiniti driver at a Bedford-Stuyvesant intersection, causing the scooter to careen into a parked car and the rider to be ejected. In Corona, 36-year-old Amikar Armondo Marquez-Larez died after being struck on his scooter by the driver of a Honda CR-V, who fled the scene and has not been caught.
So far this year, 140 people have died in traffic collisions in the five boroughs, according to NYPD data, which is 10% below the levels seen at this time last year.
But this year has been the deadliest in more than a decade for cyclists, with 20 bike riders having lost their lives in 2023 in collisions. And while four out of five boroughs have seen declines in fatalities from last year, traffic deaths are up nearly 50% this year in Queens.
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