In 2017, after a crash at a Bronx intersection injured five people, a witness, Dwight Downer, complained about speeding drivers.
“People don’t know how to slow down,” Mr. Downer told WABC-TV. “People are in a hurry to go nowhere.”
Over the weekend, Mr. Downer, a beloved football coach, was killed by a car yards from that same intersection, across the street from his home in the Laconia section of the borough.
Mr. Downer, 60, was getting out of his car a little after midnight on Saturday when a pickup truck and a BMW collided at Eastchester Road and Givan Avenue, sending the BMW careening into Mr. Downer and several parked cars, the police said. He was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Mr. Downer was one of three pedestrians killed by drivers over the weekend, an especially deadly two days in a year that has so far seen more than 100 New York City pedestrians killed in traffic, a nearly 13 percent increase over this time last year.
A father of two, he was a volunteer football coach for the Bronx Buccaneers, an independent youth football program, and for Clinton DeWitt High School, his alma mater.
Tasha Andrews, Mr. Downer’s romantic partner of five years and the general manager of the Buccaneers, said he loved football, especially the San Francisco 49ers. But, she added, he loved the athletes he coached more.
A retired correction officer, Mr. Downer had been deeply affected by seeing children and young adults in jail, Ms. Andrews said. In retirement, coaching became a way for him to help keep children focused, in school and out of trouble.
“He was using football as a tool to get to them, to mentor them, to be an example to them,” Ms. Andrews, 55, said. “People might look at it and say, ‘Boy, he really loves football.’ And I’m not saying he didn’t, but it was the kids, and football was the bridge, the means that he was able to have access to them.”
At a vigil in Mr. Downer’s honor on Tuesday evening at DeWitt Clinton High School, current and former players shared memories of a strict coach and an exceptionally generous mentor who freely gave his time, advice and even his shoes. One Buccaneer, Markus Payano, 9, remembered that he had shown up for his first practice in sandals. When Mr. Downer, known to his players as Coach D, noticed his footwear, he took his own cleats off his feet and handed them to Markus.
“He never talked down,” Markus said after the vigil. “He always encouraged us to be the best of the best.”
Keith Spivey, the president of the Buccaneers, described Mr. Downer as a true friend and a “magnificent dude” who was usually the first person to get to the field before practice, driving equipment and sometimes players there.
Off the field, Mr. Downer loved bourbon, cigars and cooking. Ms. Andrews said his signature dish was a pan-seared steak with shrimp and asparagus. She described him as patient, calm and funny.
“He was very logical, and I’m very emotional,” Ms. Andrews said. “He absolutely loved life, and he lived every day hopeful of a good life.”
Less than a day after Mr. Downer was struck, a driver hit and killed a 60-year-old man, Uddin Shahi, at another Bronx intersection less than four miles from Mr. Downer’s house. The next day, a 73-year-old woman, Chana Layosh, was hit and killed while crossing the street in Brooklyn.
Traffic deaths are especially prevalent around this time of year, when the end of daylight saving time means earlier sunsets and more hours of darkness, said Alexa Sledge, the communications director of Transportation Alternatives, a transit advocacy and research group. Holidays can also make collision rates tick up, Ms. Sledge said, because more people are on the road, traveling to see family or friends.
In the first 11 months of this year, 241 people died in traffic collisions, according to data from the Police Department. That’s a slight decline — 3.6 percent — from the same period last year. And more pedestrians have been killed by drivers this year than in six of the past seven years, Ms. Sledge said.
She added that the city needed to take more drastic action to keep New Yorkers safe in the city’s sidewalks, bike lanes and streets.
“Every single traffic death is a policy failure, it’s a design failure, it’s an infrastructure failure,” she said. “And if we make different choices when it comes to how we design our streets and how we design our laws, there won’t be any more traffic deaths.”
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