More Top Picks Skateboards And Scooters
player ready...A man crossing the street in the Lawndale neighborhood was killed Tuesday night after two cars struck him, police said.
The driver of the first car that hit the 58-year-old man fled the scene, police said. The silver car headed south down Pulaski Road after the 9:30 p.m. collision, witnesses said. The second driver whose car hit the pedestrian, a 20-year-old man, remained on the scene in the 4000 block of West 5th Avenue and awaited authorities.
The 58-year-old pedestrian was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was not at a crosswalk when he was killed, police said.
No arrests have been made and detectives continue to investigate.
Tuesday’s fatal hit-and-run follows a string of similar pedestrian deaths earlier in the summer.
In Lawndale 11-year-old Ja’Lon James had just completed fifth grade and was on the honor roll when he was fatally struck by a car in a mid-June hit-and-run.
Earlier in June, 75-year-old Peter Paquette was fatally struck by a car in an Irving Park Road crosswalk in the North Center neighborhood.
In the two weeks prior, 3-year-old Lily Grace Shambrook and 2-year-old Raphael “Rafi” Cardenas were fatally struck by cars in separate accidents. Shambrook was on a bike in the Uptown neighborhood, and Cardenas had been crossing a street on a mini-scooter in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.
Following the string of summertime pedestrian deaths, community members rallied for road improvements that would keep cyclists and walkers safer and put a spotlight on city streets that are by and large not designed with foot and bike traffic in mind.
City officials have since announced concrete-protected bike lanes will be installed across Chicago. The City Council also narrowly rejected a proposal that would have raised the speed camera over-the-limit threshold from 6 mph to 10 mph, a move proponents said protects pedestrians from racing cars.