Traffic signal study follows fatal crash

Days after a fatal crash at the intersection of 181st Street and 73rd Avenue in Fresh Meadows, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is considering whether a traffic signal is needed at the corner. They have begun a traffic study of the intersection, expected to last 12 weeks.
The move, however, is long overdue, said local residents, who called the stretch a “raceway” between Utopia Parkway and 188th Street.
On Sunday, February 25, a 48-year-old father, Daniel Luey, was killed after a car heading west on 73rd Avenue slammed into his silver Toyota. Luey had been driving with his wife and 12-year-old son just blocks from their Holliswood home, when the accident occurred and sent their car careening onto an upward-sloped lawn.
Afterward, local residents said the mom and son got out of the smashed car to wave down passing drivers for help, but by the time Luey arrived at New York Hospital Queens (NYHQ) in Flushing, he was pronounced dead.
His wife, Chuimui, and son, Michael, only suffered minor injuries in the fatal crash. Michael was discharged from NYHQ the same day, and Chuimui was still in the hospital and in fair condition, as of Tuesday, February 27. The 88-year-old driver of the second car, identified in published reports as Harold Gross, was brought to the hospital after the accident for observation.
The cause of the accident has not yet been determined by the Accident Investigation Squad.
However, local residents said that drivers often go above the un-posted 30-mile-per-hour speed limit on the stretch of 73rd Avenue between Utopia Parkway and 188th Street, which runs parallel to Union Turnpike.
“You see people speeding all of the time on 73rd Avenue. A lot of the time, people pass on the right side,” said Mubarak Mashriqi, who lives on the corner of 181st Street and 73rd Avenue and worries for the safety of his five young grandkids. “Since I bought this house seven years ago, I’ve seen a lot of accidents on this corner. Once they even hit my [parked] car.”
Joan Volman, who has lived on 180th Street and 73rd Avenue for 46 years, said she has complained for years about the need for a stop sign or stoplight along 73rd Avenue.
“They have to go slower on 73rd [Avenue]. It’s like a raceway,” she said. “They need more lights and more tickets given over there.”
“I see them [drivers] come up to the stop signs and blow through them like bats out of hell,” Volman said of the all-way stop sign at 179th and 75th Avenue.
“When I went around the corner, I said, ‘Oh my God,’” she remembered adding, “You watch enough crime scenes on television … you already know the yellow tape means no good.”