Surveillance video capturing a horrifying crash that sent a boy on his bicycle flying through a Bronx storefront has bolstered neighbors' calls for increased traffic safety measures in the area, and the city is promising changes.
Video of the May 10 crash obtained exclusively by NBC 4 New York shows a black SUV veering across a median near White Plains Road and Watson Avenue, slamming up onto the sidewalk and plowing the boy through the plate glass of a barber shop. (Warning: Video above may be shocking to some.)
The boy, 12-year-old Abraham Al-Saidi, recalled: "I got hit hard."
Abraham said he was in such shock and that "it didn't hurt that much because I didn't feel it, because it came right away."
It's not clear what caused the driver to go across the road so suddenly, whether she was going too fast or trying to make a U-turn.
Crossing guard Glady Valdez, who's worked at the nearby intersection for 20 years, says traffic in the area has always been "very dangerous."
"Sometimes I fear for my life," she said.
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Mark Solomon, the barbershop owner who witnessed the crash, thinks the road is so dangerous because "everybody is trying to beat the light."
The city acknowledges that White Plains and Watson, just yards from where Abraham was hit, was identified as a "high-crash corridor with the amount of severe crashes and fatalities ranking in the top of 10 percent of all Bronx corridors."
The city sent the local community board a poster highlighting eight fatalities, 27 severe injuries per mile and 230 total injuries on that stretch of road since 2007.
Under Mayor de Blasio's new Vision Zero traffic safety plan, the city has lowered the speed limit to 25 miles per hour and will add turning lanes this fall.
Abraham's lawyer said the changes, while set in motion some time ago, didn't come in time to protect the boy.
"It's always good to improve safety for the lives of the people in the neighborhood and the lives of the people in the city," said Micah Kwasnik. "Unfortunately, it's a little late."
The boy's family has filed a notice of claim against the city.
