A 66-year-old man was struck and killed by a U.S. Postal Service truck early Saturday morning while crossing Ninth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen, and police say the driver did not remain at the scene. The crash happened just after 5:30 a.m. on Ninth Avenue between West 54th and West 55th streets, according to police.
Police say the man was crossing Ninth Avenue mid-block when the USPS truck struck him. He was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, as reported by ABC7 New York. No arrests have been made in the case, and the NYPD Highway Collision Investigation Squad is now investigating the crash.
Tracking down the truck could prove tricky. Marked USPS delivery vehicles are exempt from state motor vehicle registration and do not carry standard license plates, instead displaying unique seven-digit fleet serial numbers on their exteriors, according to SlashGear. Investigators typically must rely on surveillance footage capturing that serial number or coordinate with local post offices to check early-morning dispatch schedules.
Federal Agency Adds a Layer to the Investigation
Because a federal postal vehicle is involved, the case is expected to draw in the U.S. Postal Inspection Service alongside the NYPD. That agency routinely works with municipal law enforcement during criminal investigations involving postal vehicles, employees, or federal property, according to the Office of the District Attorney Queens County.
If the driver is identified, leaving the scene of a fatal crash without reporting it to police is a Class D felony under New York Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 600(2), punishable by up to seven years in state prison and fines between $2,000 and $5,000, per Saland Law. Because the vehicle involved belongs to the federal government, any civil wrongful-death claim from the victim's family would have to be filed administratively against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act before a lawsuit could move forward, a process governed by federal statute and outlined in the eCFR.
A Corridor Redesigned for Pedestrian Safety
The crash occurred on a stretch of Ninth Avenue that the city overhauled just a few years ago specifically to reduce conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians. In March 2023, the city completed a $231 million infrastructure project along Ninth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen that added 11 feet of pedestrian space through so-called “Super Sidewalks” and upgraded protected bike lanes between West 50th and West 59th streets, according to Streetsblog New York City. That redesign also cut vehicle lanes on the avenue from four to three.
This is not the first time a fatal collision involving a USPS truck has drawn scrutiny in the city. A previous fatal USPS truck collision in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, in May 2019 sparked public debate over postal vehicle safety tracking and the difficulty local authorities face issuing automated traffic summonses to federal vehicles, Streetsblog reported at the time. NYPD officials noted then that postal vehicles are exempt from standard traffic camera ticketing.
Case Adds to Grim Citywide Numbers
Clearance rates for hit-and-run cases citywide remain a persistent concern. NYPD data compiled this year shows the arrest rate for injury-causing hit-and-run collisions in New York City dropped from 8.6% in 2018 to 3.6% in 2023, though investigators still identified the driver in 54% of fatal hit-and-run cases during that period, according to AEE Law.
The death also lands amid a broader, if improving, safety picture for pedestrians in New York City. The city recorded 111 pedestrian fatalities in 2025, an all-time low since record-keeping began in 1910 and a 9% decrease from 122 pedestrian deaths in 2024, per Brett Nomberg Law. Statewide, pedestrians still account for roughly 25% of all traffic fatalities, a proportion more than eight percentage points higher than the national average, the same source notes. In just the first five months of 2026, Manhattan alone logged 11,902 total motor vehicle collisions as part of a citywide total of 30,179 crashes, 12,241 injuries, and 70 traffic fatalities, according to Greenspan & Greenspan Injury Lawyers.
No further details about the driver or the truck's route have been released. The NYPD Highway Collision Investigation Squad's search for the driver continues.
