BK Pedestrian Killed In Dump Truck Crash, Driver At Large: NYPD

BROOKLYN, NY - A 58-year-old woman from Flatbush was killed just blocks from her home early Thursday morning when a dump truck struck her at a marked crosswalk, authorities said.

The victim, Maria Piovanetti, 58, was pronounced dead at the scene at about 6 a.m. after medics found her laying in the intersection of Tilden Avenue and Bedford Avenue near Kings Theatre, police said.

An initial investigation by the NYPD Highway District's Collision Investigation Squad found that Piovanetti was walking westbound from the northeast corner to the northwest corner on the marked crosswalk on Bedford Avenue when she was struck by a 2014 Kenworth dump truck traveling southbound on Bedford Avenue, police said.

The driver of the dump truck, who was not immediately identified Thursday, had fled the scene after the hit, police said. No arrests have been made as of Friday and the investigation remains ongoing.

The New York Daily News was the first to report that the dump truck made an illegal right turn at a red light while Piovanetti was crossing the street.

Several dump truck collisions with Brooklyn pedestrians have been reported in recent months, killing or critically injuring victims in Midwood, Greenpoint and Brooklyn Heights. A Queens school crossing guard was also fatally struck by a dump truck in October.

In fact, the license plate seen in surveillance photos of the Manolos Trucking dump truck in Thursday’s hit-and-run matched the plate numbers for the vehicle that ran down the Queens crossing guard last year, the New York Daily News reported.

The incident comes as New York City reports decreasing pedestrian deaths, a figure that has fallen 45 percent in 10 years thanks to street redesigns, city officials said.

While it’s unclear if Manolos Trucking faced any repercussions for the fatal October hit, a safety review conducted by federal officials after the crash found did not give the company a safety rating, found no critical violations and dubbed the New Jersey-based trucking company “non-ratable.”

A Patch review of federal inspection records shows Manolos Trucking drivers have been issued at least eight violations in the last 24 months ranging from speeding over 15 mph over the speed limit to failure to obey a traffic signal. Reports of unsafe driving from Manolos Trucking drivers have also steadily increased since September 2023, documents show.

A total of four crashes involving the trucking company have been reported in the last five months, with two October crashes and one hit each in September and December.

A request for comment from Manolos Trucking and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the government agency that administers the safety rankings, was not immediately returned.