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Motorcycle Rider Dies in Sunnyside Crash

Sept. 5, 2013 By Christian Murray

Photo: iStock

A motorcyclist was killed after colliding with a Jeep in the vicinity of 39th Street and Queens Boulevard yesterday, according to police.

The bike rider was traveling south on 39th Street at 3:40 pm when he collided with a 39th Street north bound Jeep Liberty.

When EMS arrived on the scene, the victim, a 53-year-old white man, was unconscious and unresponsive. He was transported to Elmhurst Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

There is no criminality suspected, according to police.  The identity of the deceased was later named as Eugene O’Donnell, from Palm Beach Gardens (Florida).

The operator of the Jeep Liberty was issued a summons for Failure to Yield.

UPDATE:  The police said that speed was not a factor in the incident.

UPDATE: According to three people who wrote into this site, the driver of the Jeep Liberty was turning into the Citibank parking lot. However, the police did not have those details.

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43 Comments

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anonymous

@friendsforever it doesn’t matter if the kid had alcohol In his system or not the driver was drunk and he hit the kid so hard he sent him flying 30 feet and he died from impact. ( The speed limit is 25 on that rode had the drive drove the speed limit and not been a drunk LOSER the kid would have just had some broken bones) The drive then drove off without even a second thought and lied to police about who was driving. Know your facts before you put your foot in your mouth. He ran that kid down and didn’t even stop to see if he was alive or dead. He got done to him what he did to someone else. It sucks cuz no one wins. A young boy will never have the life he deserves and the motorcycle driver won’t get to live his life either. Lose lose in my mind oh and as for the brother of the 18 year who died …did you ever think that the death of his brother had something to do with his drug use. So before you go and talk shit about his family take a second and think of what it was like to have your sibling killed almost in front of you and watch the man who did it walk free with his head held high. @friendsforever you disgust me with your lose words!!!

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anonymous

Most of you may not know this but the man on the motorcycle who die struck and killed an 18 year old boy when he was Drunk About 10 Years ago. He took off and denied driving the car. Thankfully bank surveillance cameras Caught It ALL On tape. You reap what you sew!

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Disgusted

@friendforever … Sounds like KARMA to me! P.s I doubt it was genetics u ignorant disgusting human – his STEP brother later passed – which is totally irrelevant to the situation – a man who MOWED down a child later gets mowed down himself? Now maybe his family can feel the loss, tragedy , & wrath of idiots talking nonsense & disgracing the memory of the dead with fabrications, & opinions – justice is finally served!

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friendforever

What was the name of the Jeep driver? Why is that not in any article. Geno was the best person. The kid he hit and killed darted out from behind the booth leading into Breezy Point attempting to walk home to Roxbury. Tox screen showed alcohol and drugs in the kid. That was never published though. Oh, and his brother later overdosed. Seems it was genetic. He lived with that guilt every day of his life. He was tortured by the family. They are in their own hell. Everyone that knew him was blessed. My time with him was too short. His kindness and love of life made this world a better place. Shame on all that judge people they don’t know.

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dubliner

I’m reasonably sure the driver of the car did’nt wake up that morning with the intent of killing someone…..is there a driver out there that has never intentionally run a red light or made a risky turn….as a motorcycle rider myself….I know the risks…if you want to ride …you must accept them.

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Rocky

The most common cause of motorycle accident, fatal or not is making a left turn in front of an on coming motorcycle. The reason is the car operator has a difficult time judging the speed of the oncoming motorcycle because it is not a car. If the motorcyclist is speeding it naturally becomes that much more difficult. RIP Gene

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Cat

What happened was a tragedy however 8 years ago the man riding the motorcycle drove drunk and hit and killed an 18 year old boy, he somehow managed to walk and never went to jail. I hope all involved have their peace

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Sunnyside South

If only the idiot in the jeep had made the illegal turn into a Mack truck instead of a motorcycle. There’d be one less jackass on the roads.

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Anonymous

The Jeep made a illegal left turn into the motorcycle, how is it the bikers falt? This sh-t head should be in jail.

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Sunnyside South

@Luvu2

For a street naming, it helps if the victim’s death somehow spotlights a platform on the liberal agenda: i.e. gun control, gay marriage or if the victim is a personal friend of someone of influence.

If the jeep was crossing a double yellow line, then that driver should have the book thrown at him. Too many drivers think it’s a joke out there on the road. They don’t give a crap that their stupid, careless mistakes cost people their lives. I have seen way too many drivers that when they’re behind the wheel, they pay more attention to the music on their stereo, their cellphone, their cigarettes… The road in front of them interests them very little.

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Luvu2

Can we have a street naming instead of the wheeler child since this guy died here? Jimmy van Bramer call your office

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Angray

The accident seems really strange. Jimmy pulled the bike off O’donnell, yet from the pictures it looks like the Jeep bumper was barely hanging on. The way the bumper is damaged and hanging, it would appear the motorcycle ran directly into the Jeep. Why is the bike only a few feet away if this was such a big impact? Shouldn’t momentum have the rider propelled south in the direction he was riding? Yet the photos show the bike perpendicular to the Jeep and O’donnell pinned under, from Jimmy’s account.

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Anonymous

@ xioma

You make no sense. It didn’t matter how fast the motorcycle was going. The idiot jeep driver was making a left turn, across a double yellow no less, he must yield.

He obviously didn’t, hence the ticket which is far too little unfortunately for killing someone. He should be prosecuted.

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South Side Johnny

Jimmy- we are trying to understand. Can you explain what happened? Was the motorcycle speeding? Did the guy in the jeep make an illegal left-hand turn?

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Jimmy

How fast you all judge without knowing facts, and how well you all could run this city ! Wow . God bless the big guy ( with the back pack ) who was trying to recicatate the motorcyclist while we all watched in shock , I was only able to pull the bike off Mr. O’Donnell ( the motorcyclist ) RIP !!!!

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XiomA

Please stop making judgement, there were witnesses who saw it all happened and said that the guy on the motorcycle was going pretty fast; use common sense, if the jeep was waiting to turn n the motorcycle crashed into it, which one was going faster? Motorcyclists are known to speed and make noise.

I’m deeply sorry that a person lost his life for not being more careful and very saddened for the driver of the jeep for being involuntarily being involved in such an accident, i’m positive he is devastated by it.

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SuperWittySmitty

Webley- you are anti-bicycle and can’t resist getting in a dig, as if motorcycles and bicycles share so many qualities and a bicycle has anything to do with this story. Remind me of the last time a bicycle caused someone injury in Sunnyside, the last time one roared down your block at 5:30 AM, setting off car alarms, or dripped oil and spewed poison gas in our air. I’ve never seen this yet.

While you probably make some valid points, they’re precluded by your cranky views on bicycle riding and are therefore tainted. The more bicycles riders we have in our neighborhood, the safer our streets will be, and the amount of speeders colliding and killing each other will be less. Hope you are still around to see the improvements that are coming.

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Steven B

The jeep was turning left and crossing a double solid yellow line. In my driver’s manual you were never to cross double solid lines.

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QueenBee

The drag racers and motorcyclists have been racing up and down the streets of Queens all summer long. The Police do nothing about them. I’ve made phone calls to 311 & 911 every weekend reporting drag racing on my street that goes on from midnight to 5 a.m. every Sat/Sun to no avail. The Police need to set up speed traps and issues tickets. Taxi’s race up the boulevard as well. This would help increase their revenue as well. Enough is enough!

Speed camera’s should be installed on the busiest avenues and boulevards. Especially, Laurel Hill Blvd, Queens Blvd, 48th Street leading to the expressway junctions and the major intersections.

There is no respect for the law anymore in Sunnyside and Woodside. Because the Police don’t respond unless there is a body lying in the road!

Prayers to the deceased and his family and the driver of the Jeep who will have visions of this terrible accident the rest of his life. Senseless and selfish driving mistakes cost lives!

As for Anonymous’ comments: before you go disparaging the dead so soon… please provide a news link citing your facts to back up what you say.

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Webley

Motorbikes, no better than regular bikes. He must have been going really fast to get killed in something like that, we know Jeep wasn’t speeding, he can’t be he is making a turn into a sidewalk. I suspect bike was trying to beat the jeep instead of braking for it, and paid the price. What they should do, block people from turning against the traffic in these places, just put one of those flexible bumpers, don’t let people make left off Citibank lot or make left like the Jeep, let them go down block and come off queens blvd to get into citi bank.

There are so many places that requires improvement on Sunnyside/Woodside/Queens Blvd, but nobody speaks up, unless it is a street where politicians or old police chiefs live (Sunnyside Gardens bumpers were installed at their request) nothing real gets done in the area.

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South Side Johnny

You have an interesting idea of what “things working out” means. I guess you know all of the details but instead of giving us anything substantial, you are just going to give us all a life lesson in karma. Anonymously. Gee, thanks.

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Joe

39th Street is a hot mess magnet for accidents, can’t believe how many times I’ve seen a situation there. Eerily enough I saw this while on the 7 home and earlier today saw the motorcycle sitting next to the Vernon Jackson station by the junkyard. Freaky.

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86Mets

Unfortunately, it will take a policeman or politician becoming the victim of such an incident before serious punishments are considered.

Hell, you can even ride up on the sidewalk and cut off a young woman’s foot and walk away with a small fine.

Want to whack somebody and get away with it? Just use a car.

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86Mets

This is ridiculous. If you fail to yield or make any other moving violation that kills another person, you should get a lot more than a summons. Cars are deadly weapons, it’s about time the law started to prosecute people who use them as such.

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the Grimster

We don’t know what happened so let’s hold off on Judgment! Americans have a bad habit of jumping to conclusions. this would never happen in Britain.

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mobo

Anonymous, come on, you don’t know that to be a fact. Have a little compassion. It’s a terrible tragedy.

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Sycamore

I just had a thought. Why not scrape up all the asphalt covering the Belgian Blocks. You just don’t speed over Belgian blocks unless yo want to shake the teeth right out of your head.

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Anonymous

@ mobo

Boo hoo, he won’t be the same shithead who can’t be bothered to pay attention when making right turns.

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Rattan Singh

I live on that block and it’s good to clarify what happened. The initial story I heard was that both parties were D.O.A. Queens Blvd is nick named the “blvd of death” for a reason. They recently (few years back) put up traffic cameras on 39st and I personally believe that’s the worst thing the city could’ve done. Lets keep it real you see the signal turn yellow and know that there’s a camera there to catch you what are you going to do? Exactly, speed right through thus in my opinion making everyone higher at risk for future accidents. In my entire lifetime of living here I can’t count the number of accidents I’ve seen here. Something needs to be done such as speed bumps not cameras.

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mobo

What does his being white have to do with anything? A man was killed! And whoever was driving will probably never be the same person again.
A tragedy.

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Anonymous

The motorcyclist was hit by the jeep turning to go into the Citibank parking lot? Seems there should have been more then a summons for failing to yield.

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