A city Sanitation supervisor was suspended after snow and ice improperly cleared from the Long Island Expressway in Queens may have led to a fatal car crash, sources told the Daily News Thursday.
The 4:30 a.m. Feb. 6 crash killed 50-year-old livery driver Carlos Asitimbay, who lost control of his Toyota Camry near the exit to the Van Wyck Expressway before his vehicle was struck by a tractor-trailer.
Asitimbay suffered severe head and body trauma and was rushed by medics to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens but could not be saved. The tractor-trailer driver was hospitalized with minor injuries and has not been charged.
“This is currently the subject of an active NYPD investigation, and I can’t provide comment while that is underway, but I will be sure to update,” Mayor Mamdani said of the crash Thursday.
Asitimbay’s brother-in-law happened upon the scene of the fatal crash and asked police why there was so much snow in the right lane, according to a law enforcement source.
A Sanitation Department supervisor was put on 10-day unpaid leave following the crash, which is currently under review by the NYPD, city government sources said.
Sources previously told the Daily News that NYPD investigators notified Department of Sanitation officials of the dangerous conditions after Asitimbay’s death.
“There is an NYPD investigation underway, as there always is after a fatal vehicle collision,” DSNY spokesman Joshua Goodman said in a statement. “Following the conclusion of that investigation, personnel or disciplinary action will be taken if deemed necessary and appropriate.”
Less than two hours before the crash, the operator of a city Sanitation vehicle pushed snow and ice from the shoulder into the right lane, creating a hazardous road condition that caused at least one other fender bender before Asitimbay was killed, The News previously reported.
“My uncle was a good man. We’re very affected by this. He was a caring father, brother and uncle,” the victim’s 35-year-old niece, Carla Yauri Asitimbay, said Wednesday. “This is Sanitation’s fault. … This could have been prevented.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Police investigate after a 50-year-old driver was killed when his vehicle was struck by a tractor-trailer on the Long Island Expressway in Queens Feb. 6. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Sanitation workers typically move some snow and ice into traffic lanes on local streets in order to break it up and allow it to melt — but those protocols are prohibited on highways, where drivers operate at much higher speeds. Asitimbay was killed in a 50-mph zone.
The Mamdani administration has faced criticism over its response, including snow removal, to the winter storm and historic cold spell and Sanitation officials, along with officials from other agencies, are slated to be questioned by the City Council in an oversight hearing on Monday.
