Transportation
It's No 'Accident': NYPD Changes the Way It Talks About Traffic Deaths
The NYPD is replacing the term "accident" with the word "collision," a change that underscores a new approach to bike and pedestrian fatalities.
A year and a half ago, Mathieu Lefevre, a 30-year-old artist and resident of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was hit and killed by the driver of a truck while riding his bicycle. The driver left the scene and later claimed he had no idea he had struck anyone. Lefevre’s family, who are from Canada, traveled to the United States to protest the lax investigation of their son’s death by the New York City Police Department.
The driver was never charged in the case, and the Lefevre family went to court to protest the way information about their son’s death had been withheld from them – a case that was eventually dismissed as moot.