Cabbie Who Forced Cyclist Into Path Of Truck Not Charged: Police

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Police were ready to arrest the cab driver who forced an Australian tourist to swerve out of the Central Park West bike lane and be fatally struck by a truck, but the Manhattan district attorney's office declined to prosecute, according to reports and police officials.

Although it was the collision with the truck that killed 23-year-old Madison Jane Lyden, the cab driver who cut her off in the Central Park West bike lane was the "real cause" of the tourist's death, 20th Precinct Commanding Officer Captain Timothy J. Malin said at a Community Board 7 meeting, Streetsblog first reported.

"We took it to the DA's office, everyone on scene wanted to arrest, the collision investigation squad wanted to arrest," Malin said during the board meeting. "DA didn't want to prosecute."

The cab driver, identified as Jose Peralta, parked inside the bike lane on the east side of Central Park West to drop off a customer before the collision. Peralta did not check for oncoming bike traffic before attempting to pull back into the road, Malin said.

The district attorney's office, led by Cyrus Vance Jr., undertook its own analysis on whether Peralta could be criminally charged, a spokesman for the office said. That analysis found that charges could not be brought because Lyden never made contact with Peralta's vehicle.

“Following this tragic incident our Office confirmed that Mr. Peralta was a validly licensed operator, and separately undertook a legal analysis to determine whether any criminal charges could apply," district attorney spokesman Danny Frost said in a statement.

"The Office determined that New York law does not provide criminal liability for drivers whose illegal standing contributes to a fatality in instances where no contact is made between the illegally standing vehicle and the victim. We would strongly support legislation to address this gap in the law.”

Felipe Chairez, the driver of the truck that hit Lyden, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated after the fatal collision. The driver had a blood alcohol level of .032 after the collision, which is higher than the legal limit of .03 for a commercial vehicle, Malin said. Chairez, who also had beers in the cab of the truck, was also given a summons for taking the oversize vehicle onto Central Park West.

Lyden was "following all the rules of the road" while biking with a friend near West 67th Street before the collision, Malin said. The 20th Precinct commanding officer said that cops in the precinct took the DA's decision to not prosecute the cab driver "personally" and issued 260 summonses in the month following the collision.

The collision brought calls by local elected officials to make the bike lane on Central Park West more safe for cyclists. City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal called the death of 23-year-old Madison Jane Lyden "a profound tragedy, even more so because it was preventable," in a statement on Twitter.

"In many areas of our city, painted bike lanes are simply not enough to protect cyclists. We need a two-way protected bike lane on Central Park West. This should never happen again," Rosenthal's statement read.

A protected bike lane acts to separate bike traffic from car traffic through some sort of physical barrier. Most protected lanes in the city are formed by shifting curb-side parking into the street and giving the curb-side lane to cyclists. The current bike path on Central Park West is located directly in between a travel lane and a parking lane, so drivers have to cut across it in order to park or pull out into the road.

Watch Malin's full remarks below. He begins speaking about the collision around the 1:10:45 mark:

Photo by Patch