What should have been a routine trip to drop off his wife at work turned into tragedy Sunday morning when a speeding car crashed into the couple, killing the wife and injuring four other people, police said.
A witness, who described herself as a friend of the victim, told NBC10 she saw a red sedan speeding shortly before 7 a.m. on Roosevelt Boulevard near Tyson Avenue in Mayfair.
She hoped that car wouldn’t cause an accident, the woman said. Moments later, the witness saw a wreckage involving several cars on the side of the road, she said. Among them was a black Nissan Rogue that her friend, Diana Como, was traveling inside of with her husband, the witness told NBC10.
Como was pronounced dead at the scene.
“She was real nice,” Mayra Gonzalez said of her friend and coworker.
Gonzalez choked back tears as she muttered, “It’s hard.”
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Police said three cars were involved in the crash. A 34-year-old man suffered a leg fracture and a 55-year-old man suffered a non-life threatening head injury, according to investigators. Two other people were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
Police have not identified the driver of the speeding car or that driver’s condition. No arrests have been made.
Juan Moore of Northeast Philadelphia told NBC10 he tried to help after witnessing the crash.
"The red Chrysler 300 tried to swerve around the black car in the middle lane," Moore said.
Moore says speeding has often been a problem on the boulevard.
"That happens all the time right there," he said. "Everybody driving so fast and trying to rush the lights and they just don't take the time to think."
According to Philadelphia Deputy Streets Commissioner Richard Montanez, 7 percent of the city's traffic fatalities occur on the nine miles of the boulevard that stretch through Philadelphia.
Montanez is also part of Vision Zero, an initiative to eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries. He believes a big part of doing that is listening to residents.
"Some of them feel that the Roosevelt Boulevard is fine, some feel that the Roosevelt Boulevard is dangerous," he said.
Pennsylvania State Representative John Taylor (R), who lives just off the boulevard, is pushing for a change.
"My wife and I hear the sirens," he said. "We hear the helicopters. We hear the crashes."
Taylor proposed a bill that would allow municipalities to put in speed cameras.
"It would be a new technology to detect speed," he said. "People would automatically get tickets without the police being on sight. We think that it'll go a long way to get people to slow down."
