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Driver Laughs After Running Over Elderly Man's Foot, Police Say

By Gwynne Hogan | October 30, 2015 3:56pm | Updated on November 2, 2015 8:59am
 A driver laughed after plowing over an elderly man's foot near the corner of Ninth Avenue and 21st Street on Oct. 24 around 10:00 a.m., according to police. 
A driver laughed after plowing over an elderly man's foot near the corner of Ninth Avenue and 21st Street on Oct. 24 around 10:00 a.m., according to police. 
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CHELSEA — A driver laughed after plowing over an elderly man's foot near the corner of Ninth Avenue and 21st Street, according to police. 

The incident happened at 10 a.m. on Oct. 24, police said. When the driver saw he had driven over the 74-year-old's foot, he stopped his car long enough to laugh at the injured man, and then sped off, according to police.

It's one of two careless run-ins drivers have had with pedestrians that were reported to police in the past week. 

A day earlier, a 41-year-old construction worker was directing traffic in front a site at 520 W. 28th St., when he was clipped by a driver who refused to stop. 

The worker was holding up a signal for the driver of a gray Infiniti to stop at roughly 8 a.m. on Oct. 23. Instead, the driver blew through the flag, smashing into the man's elbow, police said. 

Police haven't tracked down either driver.

"It's very frustrating," said Christine Berthet, an advocate for pedestrian safety with her organization Chekpeds. "You have hundreds of pedestrians hit by cars where the cars are not respecting the rules and nobody pays attention to it."

"Essentially the drivers are getting a pass on pretty much everything they do."