Where is the justice?
The parents of a 3-year-old girl who was killed crossing a street in downtown Flushing last year just found out that a judge had dismissed two tickets issued to the driver of the SUV back in July without notifying them.
There was no reason given why a judge in the city Department of Motor Vehicles decided to toss the summonses for failing to use due care and failing to yield to a pedestrian. The driver, Ahmad Abu-Zayedeh, stayed at the scene at the corner of Cherry Street and Main Street, where he fatally struck Allison Liao and injured her grandmother as he turned into the intersection.
He was never criminally charged, but the community has not forgotten the little girl from Hillcrest.
Christina Furlong, founder of the advocacy group Make Queens Safer, said Allison’s family has worked to protect children on the borough’s streets ever since the accident. The parents founded Families for Safe Streets and have traveled to Albany to push the issue.
In November 2013 Flushing’s elected officials worked out an agreement with the city DOT to improve conditions at the dangerous intersection. In March, hundreds of students, parents, teachers at PS 173 in Fresh Meadows took a safety pledge to prevent more injuries in violent accidents at an assembly with lawmakers, DOT officials and Make Queens Safer.
Outraged by the DMV’s voiding of the tickets, Streetsblog – devoted to transportation in the city – filed a Freedom of Information request for documents involving the circumstances behind the voided summonses.
The girl’s father and mother were owed an explanation from the DMV on what prompted the judge to find the driver not guilty. As they prepared a wrongful death lawsuit against him, their lawyer discovered that the tickets had been dropped months earlier.
The driver, who had an elevated blood alcohol level under the legal limit, faces a special safety hearing Jan. 6 at the DMV.
A child is dead and let’s hope the DMV does its homework on why this happened.
