Delivery Bicyclist Killed By Upper East Side Hit-And-Run Driver

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A food delivery bicyclist was struck and killed Sunday on the Upper East Side by an SUV driver who fled the scene, police said.

Police responded around 4:28 p.m. Sunday to a 911 call reporting a bicyclist who had been hit by a vehicle at the intersection of East 97th Street and Second Avenue.

Police found the victim, identified as Ernesto Guzman, a 42-year-old East Harlem resident, lying in the street with trauma about his body, police said.

Guzman, who worked as a delivery man for a pizzeria, was brought to NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan, where he was pronounced dead.

According to police, Guzman had been riding his e-bike south along Second Avenue when the driver of a black Chevy Tahoe, heading west on 97th, hit him in the intersection.

The SUV was later found unoccupied about a block east, near the corner of East 96th Street and Third Avenue, with no sign of the driver, who had apparently fled. The car had license plates from the Taxi and Limousine Commission, an NYPD spokesperson said.

Police have made no arrests, and the NYPD's Collision Investigation Squad is investigating Guzman's death.

Guzman was a native of Puebla, Mexico, and coworkers remembered him as "a good man" and a hard worker, according to the New York Post.

Guzman is at least the 20th cyclist killed in New York so far this year, according to the safe streets advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, which called Guzman's death "the predictable and preventable result" of the city cutting funding for its Vision Zero traffic safety initiative.

"Delivery cyclists have been on the front lines of this pandemic, and food delivery remains one of the most dangerous jobs in New York precisely because of constant exposure to impatient drivers piloting multi-ton assault vehicles on streets designed to move and store cars," Danny Harris, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

Transportation Alternatives and other advocates have called on the city to expand its network of protected bike lanes to better protect riders.