A 61-year-old woman, identified as Wang Jing, was fatally struck by a car while crossing Union Turnpike near Main Street in Kew Gardens Hills on Wednesday morning. Jing was crossing outside of a marked crosswalk around 8 a.m. when she was hit by a 2010 Honda Civic.
The driver of the Civic, a 56-year-old woman, was making a left turn onto Union Turnpike at the time of the collision, according to the NYPD. The impact threw Jing into the roadway, causing severe head trauma. First responders transported Jing to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. She resided just blocks from the incident's location.
The driver remained at the scene and reported no injuries. The NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad is investigating the incident, and no arrests have been made.
Jing's death marks at least the fifth pedestrian or cyclist fatality in the city within the last week. Three cyclists and one other pedestrian were killed in separate hit-and-run incidents over a five-day period. In response to the recent surge in traffic deaths, Council Speaker Julie Menin and Majority Leader Shaun Abreu issued a joint statement expressing their condolences and calling the preventable deaths heartbreaking.