Truck Tire That Killed BK Driver Owned By Problem Company

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A tire that came off a truck on the Gowanus Expressway Wednesday, bouncing through the windscreen of a car and killing its driver, dislodged from a private garbage vehicle owned by a company with a history of loose wheels and dangerous crashes, records show.

The truck wheel that smashed into a 64-year-old man’s windshield and caused his Toyota to crash near Third Avenue Wednesday morning belonged to Century Waste, a New Jersey company with a long list of violations on its record, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records show.

The 34-employee and 32-truck fleet based in Elizabeth has been involved in three crashes with injuries, had more than half its trucks deemed unfit to drive and received 76 violations for unsafe conditions over the past two years, according to FMCSA records.

During one inspection on Feb. 3, a Century Waste vehicle was ordered off the road when inspectors found “wheel fasteners loose and/or missing" and "axle positioning parts defective/missing," records show.

The truck was one of 21 vehicles that inspectors have deemed unsafe to drive, citing violations that include defective brakes, spilling cargo and steering systems with components that were worn, welded, or missing.

Century Waste's violations well exceed the national average for private garbage companies, FMCSA records show. While 65 percent of the Century Waste fleet and 10 percent of its drivers have been deemed unfit to drive at one point, the national average is 20 percent for vehicles and 5 percent for drivers.

Of the four crashes Century Waste trucks has reported, three involved injuries and none involved hazardous weather, records show.

Wednesday’s crash occurred just months after Transform Don’t Trash NYC Coalition — a local nonprofit with ties to the Teamsters, the union that represents the city’s garbage collectors — found the number of crashes involving private trucks had almost doubled from 35 to 67 in two years.

Private garbage trucks failed more than half of their inspections, with 55 percent of trucks taken out of service because they were deemed too unsafe to drive, the report found.

A person who answered the phone at Century Waste decline to comment on the accident, but a manager told the New York Post their 46-year-old driver, who remained at the scene after the crash, was not injured.

The driver of the car, who was a civilian NYPD employee, died in Lutheran Hospital the same day of the crash, according to police.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock