A Brooklyn bicyclist was fatally struck by the driver of a flatbed truck, the latest in a massive spike in cyclist deaths citywide this year, police said Wednesday.
Adam Uster was returning home from a grocery run in an unprotected bike lane on Franklin Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant when the flatbed truck driver heading in the same direction made a right turn onto Lexington Ave., cops said.
The driver hit Uster, 39, knocking him off his bike.
Medics rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he died.
The city has seen a sixfold spike in bicyclist deaths this year when compared to last year. As of April 27, cops had investigated 12 bicyclist deaths compared to two reported by this time last year, according to NYPD statistics.
Uster was about a mile-and-a-half from home when he was struck.
The driver of the flatbed truck remained at the scene. No charges were immediately filed.
Uster’s mother told Streetsblog her son was a bicycling advocate and a member of Transportation Alternatives. He was returning from a nearby supermarket and had a bicycle trailer full of groceries when he was hit, she said.
“The last thing I said to him was, ‘Be safe,’” his mother, Annie Goldner, told the website. “He went out the door, took his bike, went to Wegmans.”