Car Hits Young Pedestrian, Renewing Fight For Safer Brooklyn Streets

CROWN HEIGHTS, NY — Claudia Michaels was hesitant to let her young daughter walk home alone from school, especially given she would have to use notoriously dangerous Rogers Avenue.

But she also didn't want to instill fear in her already cautious 12-year-old. To compromise, she kept her daughter, Lea Dietl, on the phone for the walks home.

Then last week, Michaels got a call every parent dreads. She picked up the phone May 17 expecting Lea's voice and instead heard a paramedic — Lea had been hit by a car.

"I went into shock," Michaels said.

Dietl was crossing the street at Rogers Avenue and Lincoln Place when a car ran a red light and hit her, Michaels said. The car was trying to pass an ambulance, which had stopped in front of Dietl and waved at her to cross the crosswalk, she said.

Patch was unable to confirm with the NYPD whether the car ran a red light. The driver checked that Dietl was OK and then fled the intersection, according to Michaels and police.

Aside from a couple scratches, Dietl was physically okay, but the emotional damage was significant, Michaels said.

Dietl's story has reverberated across her Crown Heights community.

"It could have been worse and it could have been any child," said Kaeppler Rissmann, who is on the Parents Association Board for Dietl's school.

On Monday, parents took matters into their own hands and filled the area around Dietl's school — German School Brooklyn — with signs reminding cars to slow down. More than 280 locals had signed a Change.org petition by Thursday to bring increased traffic safety precautions to the neighborhood.

In the petition addressed to DOT's Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Keith Bray, locals ask for crossing guards on Sterling Place on Rogers and Bedford Avenues.

Petitioners also ask for a speed bump on Sterling Place between Rogers and Bedford Avenues, traffic cameras on Rogers and the establishment of a School Safety Zone between Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue.

"Drivers regularly speed along Rogers Ave. between Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Ave. Many drivers illegally use the Bus lane as their personal fast lane," petition organizers said.

By Thursday, German School Brooklyn had an NYPD crossing guard, Rissmann said. But the victory was bittersweet — it came as NYPD announced it would cut its crossing guard workforce by 18 percent in the next fiscal year, the New York Daily News reported the same day.

Rissmann worried adding crossing guards at German School Brooklyn would drain resources from nearby P.S. 138, she said.

German School Brooklyn, which is new to the area, is immediately surrounded by churches, public schools, businesses and a community continuously concerned with traffic safety, Rissmann said.

Locals have long called for more city investments in the area. Safe Streets advocates continue to fight for a protected bike lanes and stronger enforcement along the deadly Bedford and Atlantic Avenues, Eastern Parkway and more major roads in the area.

In just the first four months of 2023, some 26 cyclists, drivers and pedestrians were injured in crashes on Bedford and Rogers avenues between Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue, according to NYC Crash Mapper data. For 2022, that number jumps to 75.

"These streets are really scary," Michaels said. And the city will have to hit drivers' pockets to get them to change, she said.

Michaels said she is proud of her neighbors who have taken Dietl's incident as a rallying cry. While she wants to help her daughter move forward quickly, she is happy to see the crash inspire change, she said.

"Everyone wants safer streets," said Rissmann.