TAXI TRYING TO AVOID SUV JUMPS CURB AND PLOWS INTO CROWD

From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Manhattan Injury Lawyer)

On Sunday, September 5, 2010, at about 1:30 AM, a taxi cab driven by Syed Nazir, age 49, was traveling north on First Avenue when it swerved to avoid a black Jeep Cherokee SUV, driven by Robert Batista, age 19, that may have run a red light at First Avenue and East 3rd Street. The taxi jumped the curb and slammed into a crowd of people in front of an East Village (Manhattan) coffee shop.

The cab then hit two bicyclists and crashed into the Bean Coffee Shop, where it mowed down another man who was inside the coffee shop.

Three people were injured, including one seriously. The three injured pedestrians hit by the cab were taken to Bellevue Hospital along with the cab driver and his passenger.

Police say none of the injuries are life threatening, although the condition of one pedestrian - who suffered injuries to his head, neck and hip - is described as critical but stable. The two bicyclists - men ages 28 and 29 - were both in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital with neck and back injuries, police said. Nazir of Brooklyn, was in stable condition at the same hospital, as was his passenger, a 30-year-old woman. The taxi driver suffered neck and back injuries; his passenger had an injury to her mouth.

One of the victims, "was run over completely," while another one went "head-on into the bean," said the doorman working at club Karma next door.

An area resident, who said the crash "sounded like an explosion," claimed that a man who was struck by the cab was bleeding from the face.

Jordyn Thiessen, who lives across the street, tried to help one of the bicyclists. "I was holding his head. He was on his side, bleeding profusely from his head."

Another witness from across the street said the man in the coffee shop "looked totally out of it, but he was still breathing."

"You really didn't hear the skid from the car; [just] people screaming and all of a sudden, glass hit," said Derreck Alexander, who works one door down from the site of the accident.

The front of the cab was damaged from the accident. The SUV, meanwhile, kept going and then stopped, with the driver emerging dazed, one spectator said.

Several witnesses noted that the area had been rife with accidents, with one claiming at least four had occurred in the past month because of a new street configuration.