Orphaned Girl Begs For Traffic Fixes On BK Corner Where Mom Died

KENSINGTON, BROOKLYN — The young orphaned daughter of a Brooklyn woman killed in a Kensington crosswalk is begging city officials Thursday to bring traffic fixes to the dangerous intersection where her mother died.

Dozens of people gathered around 13-year-old Ana Karen Porras during a vigil at Coney Island and Church avenues, where single mom Maria Del Carmen Porras-Hernandez, 49, was fatally struck by a car, on the one anniversary month of her death.

"We need to fix the streets," said Porras. "We need to make them safer for cyclists, for us, for everyone."

"It's important to come out and make sure that no other child gets left without a mother or a mother gets left with no kids."

Porras' mother died on July 9 when Honda driver Claudette Crosby, 63, made a right turn and crashed into Porras-Hernandez and a brown 2019 Subaru Outback, police said. The driver now faces criminal charges for failing to yield, court records show.

Porras-Hernandez' family and the Kensington community have since rallied around the girl by raising thousands of dollars in scholarship funds and backing her campaign to bring traffic cameras to the intersection where her mother died.

Vision Zero data show 151 people have been injured and 2 killed at the intersection of Coney Island and Church avenues since 2009.

And on Thursday, Porras and her cousin Dolores Gonzalez, 18, struggled to make their voices heard over the roar of the traffic where the two truck routes meet.

"I can accept death, but I can't accept the way she died," Gonzalez said. "We shouldn't have to live in a world where we tell our kids, 'Be careful for the cars.''

City Councilmember Brad Lander joined the vigil and promised he would help the family communicate their demands — which include traffic cameras and signal delays to give pedestrians more time to cross the intersection — to the Department of Transportation and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

"We're going to do everything we can to make this intersection safer," said Lander. "We can't come out here again for somebody else's mom."