“We’ve been saying all along that this is an accident waiting to happen.”CITY COUNCIL MEMBER KATHRYN FREED SoHo and Chinatown residents are in an uproar over the senseless death of a 17-year-old girl who was struck down by the unlicensed driver of a produce truck.
The accident took place while the trucker’s employer was in court charged with reckless use of its trucks.
“We’ve been saying all along that this is an accident waiting to happen,” said City Council member Kathryn Freed (D-Manhattan) of the growing number of produce distributors who jam the streets and use local sidewalks as outdoor warehouses.
Zheng Rong Xia, a junior at the High School for Humanities, was killed last Monday afternoon as she started to cross Division Street near Market Street.
A produce truck lurched forward and crushed the teen to death against another truck.
The driver, Guillermo Pena, 28, was arrested and charged with driving without a license, according to investigators.
State records show he has never held a New York driver’s license.
Pena was driving a 20-foot truck for World Farms, a produce company that has rankled SoHo residents for years.
In 1997, the firm was slapped with a court order barring it from “operating its trucks in a manner that violates the laws, rules and regulations” of the city.
Local residents said World Farms leaves oversized tractor-trailers parked with their engines running overnight, races along sidewalks with forklifts and blocks fire hydrants with trucks.
SoHo Alliance, a community group, dragged World Farms back to court earlier this year, claiming the company has thumbed its nose at the order.
A state Supreme Court justice recently called a new round of hearings to determine if the company is in contempt of the order.
Steven Goldman, a lawyer for World Farms, called the truck accident “a tragic situation” but insisted that it and the court case are “two totally different situations.”
He insisted that World Farms has complied fully with the 1997 court order and predicted the company would prevail in court.
Whatever action is taken will be too late for Zheng, who spent her afternoons and weekends helping her family by selling phone cards from a booth on East Broadway.
Stephen Wong, a family friend, said Zheng’s parents are devastated and unable to talk publicly about their daughter’s death. Also, Zheng’s 13-year-old sister is in shock and her 6-year-old brother hasn’t been told of her death.
“This is a family that came here to make sure the next generation would have a better life,” said Wong. “That’s why everyone in the family worked so hard. Now, they’re heartbroken.
Zheng’s father, Zheng Xiao Yong, came to the United States from China 12 years ago, brought in by smugglers.
He won residency through an amnesty program and applied to bring his family in 1992, said Wong.
Jack Lester, a lawyer for several community groups, said they were forced to go to court about World Farms after years of complaining to city and state agencies with little success.
“I just hope the city responds now. It seems they always respond after the fact,” said Lester.