PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 17-year-old boy was killed in a hit-and-run on Roosevelt Boulevard on Tuesday, and now his family is making a public plea for the driver to surrender to police.
Yomar Rivera had his whole life ahead of him. His family says he had a job interview scheduled for Wednesday, the day after he died while riding a bike he just got the week before.
"I just don’t know what to do at this point," Yomar’s brother Humberto Castillo-Rivera said to NBC 10. "Saying I don’t got a big brother no more — it’s just sad, because I can’t imagine losing my big brother like this."
Around 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Police said, Rivera was on his bike, trying to cross the boulevard at Adams Avenue, when he was hit by a driver who may have been in a blue-and-white Ford F-150 pickup truck. The driver kept going, and the teen was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he died.
"We just want justice, because this is not normal," Castillo-Rivera said. "It's been happening with other people, too. And other families are getting destroyed because of this."
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Yomar is the seventh person to be killed in a crash while riding a bicycle in the city this year. Coincidentally on Wednesday, just one day after Yomar's death, city officials announced an update on "Vision Zero," a cross-department plan to eliminate traffic deaths in the city by the year 2030.
There is still a long way to go. Mike Carroll, the city's deputy managing director for transportation, told NBC 10 that there has been an 82% increase in fatal crashes in the last year.
Roosevelt Boulevard is one of the most dangerous roads in Philadelphia and the entire country. About 14% of deadly crashes, and 6% of all crashes, in Philadelphia take place on the boulevard, according to the city’s "Route For Change" program, which is planning to revamp the highway through 2040.
Cameras were already put in place on the boulevard in June 2020, and officials say there are early indications are that they have been effective in reducing speeds.
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