Last September, a 6-year-old girl on the Upper East Side was hit by an SUV as she crossed the street at a crosswalk with her nanny. The driver of the vehicle, Jose Castaneda of the Bronx, had spotted a parking space and was rapidly backing up to claim it when he hit Elle Vandenberghe, who was left brain-damaged and may never walk again. Castaneda walked away with a traffic ticket, but a new law named after Elle would impose much tougher penalties for these kinds of accidents. Crazy right?
It's a constant source of outrage for those who pay attention to motor vehicle accidents involving pedestrians or cyclists. Even when fatal, the driver often gets barely a slap on the wrist—as long as he or she stays at the scene of the accident. "One of things that added insult to injury is the realization that nothing really happened to the man who had done this: just a traffic ticket," Elle's mom Heather Vandenberghe tells the Daily News.
"Elle's Law" would create the crime of "vehicular assault in the third-degree," a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, for a driver who causes serious physical injury to a pedestrian while violating traffic laws. Elle's Law would also would require the state to suspend the driver's license up to seven years.
