UPPER WEST SIDE — A woman was fatally struck and dragged several yards by an SUV Thursday a few blocks from the intersection where a 9-year-old boy's death spurred pedestrian safety legislation, police said.
Jean Chambers, 61, was crossing West End Avenue at 95th Street about 11 a.m. when a man in a 2004 Ford Explorer made a left turn from West 95th Street and hit her, according to police and fire officials.
She was taken to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, but she could not be saved, according to the NYPD.
"She had the walk sign and the light was green for the car too," said doorman Bilbil Loka, 32, who witnessed the accident from his post at 710 West End Ave. "But the driver made a very short left turn, going uptown.
"He dragged her for almost 30 feet, everybody heard her scream."
The driver, a 50-year-old man, stayed at the scene and was not immediately charged, police said. The police investigation is ongoing.
The traffic fatality is the fourth in the area this year.
On Jan. 10, 9-year-old Cooper Stock was struck and killed by a taxi driver who police said failed to yield to pedestrians in the intersection of West 97th Street and West End Avenue. An hour earlier, Alex Shear, 73, was hit and killed by a tour bus at West 96th and Broadway about a block away. About a week later, Samantha Lee, 26, a Columbia University student, was killed by an ambulance at West 96th and Broadway.
The boy's death prompted the City Council to pass legislation called Cooper's Law in May that allows the city to revoke the license of a cab driver who killed or seriously injured a pedestrian while driving recklessly.
"This is an unspeakable tragedy," City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, who sponsored the bill, said of the latest death on Thursday. "I grieve for the victim and her loved ones. This is the fourth deadly pedestrian collision in a two-block radius of the Upper West Side this year, and it is four too many."
She called on fellow legislators to extend the law to all drivers.
"Driving is a privilege, not a right, and we must do whatever we can to put a stop to reckless driving," she said.
