She Was Hit Twice by Bikes in Central Park and Says NYPD Never Followed Up

Flora was hit not once, but twice, within the same year, by cyclists pedaling where she was walking on the sidewalks of Central Park. That alone would make Flora’s story a disturbing illustration of the proliferation of collisions as bikes of all kinds compete for space with each other and pedestrians.

But it gets worse. In both cases, Flora, 72, was seriously injured–spending a night in the ICU in one incident. And in both cases the police never came, never took a report, never even responded to her calls.

As the city struggles to develop a plan to make the streets of New York safer for everyone, Flora’s case illustrates one of the biggest challenges to even understanding the scale and nature of the problem of collisions between bikes of all kinds and pedestrians.

“Ninety percent of their crashes have no police report and in 90 percent of these crashes–over 90 percent–the rider flees the scene,” said Janet Schroeder, director and co founder of the NY-EVSA, an e-vehicle safety alliance.

Speaking at a city council hearing in December, Schroeder reported that incidents between pedestrians and bikes were far more frequent than captured in statistics compiled at the Council’s direction.

“It is so much worse than the DOT stats show,” she said. “They do have correct stats on those killed but completely skewed stats on those injured.”

This is because the DOT (Department of Transportation) data is dependent on NYPD reports. But during Covid, under intense pressure to deal with a surge in serious crime, the police department adopted a new policy not to take accident reports except in the case of serious injuries.

However, even in the case of such injuries—as Flora can attest—this rarely happens.

Flora, whose name has been changed for medical privacy reasons, first was hit in the fall of 2022, by two teenage boys riding their bikes down the stairs of Belvedere Castle. They pushed her out of their way after they hit her and took off. She was bruised, swollen and had trouble walking. When she called the police precinct, she remembers, “They just took my number and promised to call back.” They never did. Nor did they arrive to assist her.

The next spring, Flora was walking in Central Park again, near the west side of the boating lake. She was hit by a cyclist who yelled “move” just as he struck her from behind. Her right wrist, leg and ankle were hurt, and she was unable to stand. The accident also damaged her transplanted kidney. Her entire torso turned black.

A photographer who’d been working nearby came to her aid. “I couldn’t think of how to get out of the park,” Flora recalls. The photographer hailed a passing CP Conservancy golf cart, which took her out of the park where the photographer hailed a cab and accompanied her to the hospital. She was admitted to the ICU at Mt. Sinai because her kidney had gone into “shock.”

Her nephrologist checked on her, and she spent the night in the ICU to ensure that the kidney was stable. “I had to have all these tests, which cost a fortune,” she said. “I had to pay about $1,400 out-of-pocket.”

She called the police, who told her they would call her back–but failed to do so. She called again about five days later, but never received a call back. She suffered from serious edema and was bed-ridden for several weeks. And the psychological trauma of having been hit and then left injured on the sidewalk has stayed with her. “It’s strange that someone could be so cruel to leave someone on the sidewalk.”

In recent months the NYPD has adopted a “quality of life” program in select precincts in select precincts–to enforce cycling laws and other low level offenses and recent expanded the pilot program was expanded earlier this month to include all Manhattan precincts. The NYPD has also begun a citywide program of writing criminals summonses to e-bikers as well as pedal bikers for infractions including failure to stop for red lights. A criminal summons requires a biker to turn up in criminal court to enter a plea. But according to reports, many of the summonses have been getting tossed by judges for various reasons. And the new blitz with summonses at red lights does not necessarily mean better reporting to accident victims.

Expanding the Quality of Life pilot program across all Manhattan precints is several years too late to help Flora who says that for her “the residue of the accident was psychological vulnerability.

“I believe in cycling,” she says. “I lived in Amsterdam on and off., and I know the etiquette. But in New York, the arrogance is so bizarre.”

Flora now sees many cyclists as “delinquents.”