SUV flies off Manhattan’s FDR, lands on yellow cab
An SUV carrying seven people that flew off the FDR and onto a taxi cab at E. 23rd street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, may have been "doing about 112 miles per hour," the New York Daily News reports.
According to the paper's police sources, the driver of the Land Rover — identified by the New York Post as Eric Bryant, 38, of Manhattan, was speeding and lost control, sending the vehicle over the elevated roadway and onto cabbie Atif Raza, 23, who has only been driving a taxi for three months.
"I couldn't believe it," a witness tells the paper, "I was actually seeing a car come off the divider and flip. It was flying."
Another witness, Gwendolyn London Jones, told the Post: "I saw the SUV flying sideways ready to flip on the cab below. I heard everyone screaming, 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God!' "
All eight people involved in the accident were injured, but only two critically, and one woman even "walked away" from the wreckage.
Raza was reportedly talking to his cousin over the phone around 3 a.m. while stopped at a red light when the Range Rover landed on top of his cab. "All of a sudden he started screaming," his cousin reportedly said.
The NYPD told Gothamist that no charges had been filed in the accident.