Viral Video: Slow Down, Watch Where You’re Going

In the 20-second clip, the boy is sent flying into the air as the car comes to a sudden halt. The boy lands several feet in front of the car before standing immediately back up and walking away, seemingly unharmed. The footage came from the car’s dashcam, and shows that the incident took place just before 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

The clip comes from Ezra Friedlander, a lifelong Borough Park resident and public relations consultant, who posted it on Twitter yesterday. In a call to Bklyner, Friedlander said he came across the clip in a Borough Park WhatsApp group. He tweeted it at 2:12 p.m., and in less than 24 hours, he said, the tweet had been viewed over 55 thousand times.

Friedlander said that he frequently argues with his wife over whether their kids should cross in the middle of the street. The clip “hit home,” he said. So he decided to tweet it. Soon, “the whole world blew up,” he said.  Friedlander does not know the name of the boy who got hit, nor his family. However, he said, everyone’s talking about it in the community.

Friedlander believed the clip had gone so viral because “people realize, when they see the clip, that literally you can take someone’s life in a few seconds.” The issue is particularly central to the Borough Park area, which is extremely congested, according to Friedlander. Cars are packed bumper to bumper, he said, because there are almost no driveways.

“All it takes is for a kid to run after a ball, or just run across the street to a friend, and someone’s driving down the block and ‘boom!’” Friedlander said. “God forbid.”

The incident occurred just days after 68-year-old Judith Wieder was killed by a cement truck, also in Borough Park.