How Long Does It Take To Clean Up A Car Crash At The Intersection Of Church & CIA?

While writing a post yesterday afternoon, we heard a crash at the intersection of Church and Coney Island Avenues. A white Cascade Water Services van and white minivan had collided (the driver of the Cascade van saying the minivan had run a red light as he was attempting to make a legal left turn from CIA with the traffic arrow), and although the front of each car took a bruising, nobody involved was injured.

Still, as tractor trailers and standard cars continued to weave around the wreck the way drivers on CIA do, it seemed like a pile-up waiting to happen. Here’s the timeline of how long it took to get cleaned up:

• 3:10pm Crash is heard. Vehicles involved can be seen just west of the center line of CIA.
• 3:31pm A police car driving north on CIA passes the accident with its lights on, clearly on its way to a more urgent situation.
• 3:33pm Another police car driving north rolls by without its lights on. We think it might turn around to get out of traffic but still help clear the way. It doesn’t.

Buses could barely make the turn. Notice the silver Volvo going the wrong way around the wreck.

• 3:42pm A third police car drives south without its lights on, stops to talk to one of the drivers for a moment, then continues on, no lights. Later the driver of one of the cars involved in the crash tells us he was told by the officer that another police car would be there in just a minute.
• 3:56pm A fourth police car drives by on its way north, lights on.
• 4:04pm A fifth police car driving east on Church drives by, no lights on.

The option for drivers turning left was to bow around the accident into the next lane, or cut behind with little visibility.

• 4:35pm An ambulance, with its lights on, stops. The ambulance driver gets out to talk to the men involved, then gets back in and leaves.
• 5:45pm This happens:

http://youtu.be/Mp9pQ8zXfM4

• 5:48pm A police car approaches driving north, pulls in next to the accident, and puts its lights on. An officer gets out and talks to the drivers.

Finally, the police stop to help.

So all in all, it took two hours and 38 minutes for police to respond to an accident that was obstructing an already dangerous and congested intersection.

While it’s very possible one precinct is stretched thin, the accident occurred on the cusp of the 66th and the 70th–and why would officers without their lights or sirens on, seemingly not in a rush to get somewhere else, not stop to assist? Since this isn’t the first issue with police response time over the last couple of days, it would be nice to have some clarification about what is going on.

When we left just before 7pm to make the Community Board 14 meeting, the accident and police car were still there. Did anyone drive by after that and see the accident, or notice when the cars were towed away?