(Photo: Leila Samii for The Local East Village)
The truck driver who killed an East Village cyclist in April has been arrested, the police say.
Kelly Hurley, a 31-year-old SoulCycle instructor and Lower East Side resident, was biking up First Avenue on the morning of April 5 when a box truck made a left turn onto 9th Street and collided with her, injuring her leg and causing severe head and body trauma. She died a week later, after being taken off of life support at Bellevue Hospital. The truck’s 59-year-old driver, Kyung H Hyun of Syosset, has now been arrested and charged with failure to yield for a pedestrian, failure to exercise due care, and making an improper left turn on a one-way road, the police said.
The horrific collision prompted outrage among East Villagers and cycling activists when, days later, officers were seen ticketing bikers near the scene of the incident.
At an April 19 meeting of the 9th Precinct’s community council, East Village residents complained that the driver of the truck had walked away with just a summons for a missing crossover mirror. A local cyclist railed about motorists constantly cutting her off.
At that meeting, the precinct’s commanding officer complained about “mixing zones” where motorists are allowed to turn left across bike lanes, so long as they yield to cyclists; earlier this month, Community Board 3’s transportation committee asked the city to reconsider those zones, DNAinfo reported.