An MTA bus and a private ambulance collided on the eastbound Belt Parkway near Exit 15 just after 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, injuring at least 11 people. FDNY said one person suffered moderate injuries, ten sustained minor injuries, and the 11th person involved declined transport to the hospital altogether.
Paramedics took ten of the crash victims to area hospitals, according to fire officials, as reported by News12 Brooklyn. The MTA confirmed that one of its buses was involved in the crash, but the agency has not released further details. The cause of the collision was not immediately known, the outlet reported.
What We Still Don't Know
It remains unclear what led the bus and ambulance to collide on the busy stretch of highway, and officials have not said which bus route was involved or whether the private ambulance was transporting a patient at the time. The station's report does not identify any of those hurt, and no additional information from the MTA had surfaced as of Wednesday night.
A Notoriously Dangerous Stretch of Highway
Wednesday's crash adds to a long and troubling safety record for the Belt Parkway. An analysis of New York City collision data by AEE Law found that the roadway injured 9,398 people and killed 46 between January 2014 and June 2024, the highest injury total of any road the firm examined, ahead of Broadway and Atlantic Avenue. The parkway also led the city in sheer crash volume, logging 1,348 crashes in 2023 alone, 442 more than the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which ranked second.
That same analysis found crash counts peaked at 3,193 in 2018 before falling every year since, dropping to 1,267 by 2024, with injuries over that span declining from 1,272 to 1,037. Driver inattention or distraction was the leading known cause, accounting for 33.6 percent of crashes with an identified cause, while following too closely made up another 26.8 percent. The analysis also flagged 4 p.m. as the single most dangerous hour on the corridor, with 1,445 crashes recorded during that hour alone.
No word yet on whether Wednesday's crash will factor into future safety reviews of the corridor, but it lands on a road already defined by its crash statistics. For now, the extent of what happened near Exit 15 remains limited to the injury count and the confirmation that an MTA bus was involved.
