Surveillance video obtained by the Daily News provides new details of the critical moments before the fatal East Village Citi Bike crash that claimed the life of 15-year-old Daria Serkov.
The video shows Daria riding on the Citi Bike as a 16-year-old girl pedaled and steered, inching alongside the 2021 Peterbilt truck as it stopped on E. 14th St. before making the turn onto First Ave. at about 9 p.m. Friday. The truck had its turn signal on before it turned and hit the electric Citi Bike.
Police said that both the truck and the girls were turning right onto First Ave., but the bike didn’t turn as sharply as the truck and ended up falling under its front wheels just outside the crosswalk, the video shows.
At least three witnesses to the horrifying scene rush up to the truck, ordering the 57-year-old truck driver to stop, with one of them reaching under the truck to help the girls.
There is a protected bike lane on First Ave. across the street from where the girls were hit, but it was not immediately clear if they were heading to it when they were hit.
Bicycling advocates from Transportation Alternatives said cyclists rolling past that corner are constantly in danger of being struck by turning vehicles as they cross the avenue to get to the dedicated bike lane.
Daria was the 13th child to be killed in a traffic accident in New York City this year, advocates said.
On Saturday, the NYPD conducted a ticket blitz against law-breaking bicyclists at the intersection. Cops were spotted out in force giving out $190 traffic tickets to cyclists blowing red lights or riding in the bus lane — just hours after the fatal crash.
Daria lived less than a mile away from the scene in the Peter Cooper Village residential complex, police said. She was in high school at New York City Museum School in Chelsea where she played soccer for Lab Museum United’s Lady Gators team.
Medics rushed both girls to Bellevue Hospital, where Daria died. The other victim is expected to survive.
Within one hour on Saturday, cops were seen giving at least three tickets to bicyclists. Cops also informed bicyclists that a girl had died at the corner the night before.
Daria’s heartbroken family declined to comment on her death Saturday. The NYPD did not immediately return a request for comment about Saturday’s ticket blitz.
The 57-year-old truck driver remained at the scene. No arrests have been made.
At the scene Friday night, a gray electric Citi Bike could still be seen lodged beneath the wheels of the truck belonging to Badger Daylighting, a company specializing in hydrovac excavation whose NYC headquarters are located in the Bronx. Badger said in a statement that they are cooperating with the police investigation.
“We are devastated by the loss of this young life and extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and friends,” the statement said.
Bdin Puangsawasdi, 60, who owns a Thai restaurant a few doors from the crash scene, heard the commotion and ran outside, where he saw one of the victims pinned under the truck.
“The firemen shook her, but she wasn’t responding,” he said. “They pulled her out from under, and the fire people gave her CPR for over 10 minutes, but she didn’t respond. There was a lot of blood. A lot of blood was coming from her ears.”
“The truck was turning the corner, and he didn’t see them,” Puangsawasdi said. “The police were right there, and they were yelling at the truck driver, ‘Stop! Stop!’ He didn’t understand what was going on.”
“The other girl was conscious when they loaded her into the ambulance,” he added. “They were both teenagers. They looked like little girls. It was horrible.”
The Citi Bike rental agreement requires riders to be at least 16 years old and states the bikes are for use by one rider only.
Transportation advocates said Daria was the fourth bicyclist to be killed within an eight-block stretch of First Ave. in the last decade.
“Both girls deserved better,” Ben Furnas, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said. “New York should be a city where young people are safe while navigating the city by bike and can experience the joy and freedom that comes from cycling.
Furnas said that intersection is “every bike rider’s nightmare.”
“You’re traveling straight with the right of way, when suddenly, a car or truck turns right directly into you,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you have the right of way, or you’re wearing a helmet, or you’re doing everything right. When we design intersections that force bike riders to cross four lanes of traffic, all the while doing so little to slow down that same traffic or calm their turns, tragedies like this happen.”
Friday night’s deadly crash was hauntingly similar to a 2023 collision where an 18-year-old Citi Bike rider was struck and killed by an Amazon truck three blocks further north.
Witnesses at the time told cops the teen was pedaling on the east side of First Ave. near the bus lane when an electric Amazon truck traveling north collided with him near E. 17th St.
A witness told the Daily News someone stole the Citi Bike after the fatal crash.
Mayor Mamdani announced Tuesday that his administration will be “reimagining” the hallmark street-safety plan of the de Blasio administration, Vision Zero, which aimed to reduce annual traffic fatalities to none.
One of the aspects of Vision Zero, created in 2014, sets a goal of increasing street-corner visibility at 1,000 intersections per year — a tactic known as daylighting.
Mamdani’s plan includes a new commitment to enforce daylighting with physical barriers to keep drivers from parking too close to the curb.
The new strategy will also explicitly seek to remove dangerous drivers from city streets. That means using the power recently granted the city by Albany to designate drivers with 16 or more speed-camera or red-light camera tickets in 12 months as “super-speeders” and require them to install a speed-limiter in their car.
The plan also calls for going a step further — pushing for legislation at the state level to enable license suspension for serial recidivists.
