Investigators said a 19-year-old pedestrian was hit in a Woodside crosswalk as a garbage truck turned off Roosevelt Avenue.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Police in Queens are investigating a fatal late-night collision in Woodside after a private garbage truck struck a 19-year-old woman in a crosswalk while making a turn near Roosevelt Avenue, authorities said Monday.
The victim, Nishath Jannath, was crossing 62nd Street at Roosevelt Avenue at about 11:55 p.m. Sunday when the truck hit her, according to police. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators said the truck was operated by Royal Waste, a private commercial hauler, and the 38-year-old driver remained at the intersection after the crash. No arrest had been made by Monday, and the NYPD Highway District Collision Investigation Squad was reviewing the case.
The early police account placed the collision in the middle of an ordinary turning movement that ended with catastrophic consequences. Authorities said the truck was traveling on Roosevelt Avenue and making a right turn onto 62nd Street when it struck Jannath as she crossed in the crosswalk. That detail quickly made the turn itself central to the investigation, because fatal pedestrian crashes in New York often hinge on a few unanswered questions: who had the light, whether the driver had a clear view, how fast the vehicle was moving and whether the pedestrian had enough time to clear the lane. Police did not answer those questions Monday. They also did not say whether nearby cameras captured the impact. Still, the location alone helps explain why investigators moved quickly. Roosevelt Avenue is one of the city’s most active corridors, lined with shops and transit connections and crowded with people well after dark.
Jannath lived on 55th Street in Woodside, police said, not far from the intersection where she was struck. The closeness of home gave the crash an especially harsh local dimension. According to police, emergency responders reached the scene and found her gravely injured. She was declared dead there rather than at a hospital, a sign of the severity of the impact. The driver, police said, suffered minor injuries and was treated at the scene. Authorities did not say how those injuries occurred. They also did not release information about the truck itself, including whether it had side guards, camera systems or other safety equipment often discussed in crashes involving large vehicles. Royal Waste did not publicly comment early Monday. The company is part of the city’s private carting network, which collects commercial waste from businesses rather than residential trash handled by the Sanitation Department.
That distinction matters in New York, where private waste hauling has long drawn scrutiny from safety advocates, regulators and elected officials. Large commercial trucks move overnight through dense neighborhoods, often on narrow streets crowded with parked cars, bus stops, subway columns and pedestrians. In 2025, city officials said overall traffic deaths had fallen sharply under Vision Zero efforts, but the broader push to reduce fatalities has never removed the danger posed by heavy vehicles making turns in busy areas. Reports by city watchdogs and transportation officials over the years have highlighted the risks tied to truck blind spots, vehicle size and repeated exposure on neighborhood routes. Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside reflects many of those conditions at once. The corridor carries steady traffic, sits under elevated tracks and serves a patchwork of stores, restaurants and apartment buildings that keep sidewalks active late into the evening.
What happens next will depend on evidence that is not yet public. Fatal-crash cases in New York are usually examined by specialist investigators who document vehicle positions, review signal timing, inspect the roadway, interview witnesses and collect video if it exists. From there, prosecutors evaluate whether any criminal charge is supported, while other agencies may separately examine licensing, safety history or regulatory compliance. None of those later steps had been announced Monday in this case. Police said only that the investigation was ongoing and that no charges were immediately filed. The medical examiner will determine the official cause and manner of death. Any public release of body-camera footage, surveillance video, summons records or court papers could give a clearer picture in the days ahead, but by Monday evening the case remained defined mostly by absence: no arrest, no public explanation and no detailed reconstruction of the final seconds before impact.
At street level, the setting offered its own plain evidence of why the crash resonated. Woodside residents pass through the Roosevelt Avenue corridor every day for trains, groceries, school and work. Trucks rumble through the same space, especially after dark, when business collections continue and traffic patterns change. That routine overlap between pedestrians and oversized vehicles is easy to overlook until one collision stops a block cold. By Monday, there was no broad public briefing, no lengthy statement from the company and no official timeline beyond the basics. Yet the story had already taken shape in the neighborhood as both a personal loss and a public-safety event: a teenager from nearby, killed in a marked crossing, at a corner where a turn was supposed to be just another turn.
Police said the investigation was continuing Monday, with the next major development likely to come if detectives release a fuller account of the turn, any video evidence or a decision on charges.
Author note: Last updated March 30, 2026.