Elderly Man Dies After Entering Belt Parkway In Wrong Direction

We began hearing a lot of chatter about a major incident on the Belt Parkway yesterday afternoon, with rumors floating up that it was a 15-car accident. Luckily, the scale wasn’t anywhere near the size of the rumors. Unfortunately, it was a major incident.

According to the New York Post:

An elderly man was killed and his wife critically injured today when the husband drove their Toyota Camry the wrong way onto the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn and hit another car, authorities said.

The 84-year-old driver and his 82-year-old passenger entered the parkway at the Erskine Street exit ramp in East New York at around 2 p.m. and started heading westbound in the eastbound lanes, cops said.

Soon after, they collided with a black Ford sedan that was going eastbound, according to authorities.

The other driver – a 55-year-old man – is in stable condition.

The accident caused major backups along the Belt Parkway as far back as the Verrazano Bridge. The entire east-bound highway was shut down for a period yesterday, as was all but one lane west-bound.