Road safety advocates are calling for more action to stop drivers from recklessly speeding after a mother and her three children were tragically killed crossing a Brooklyn street on Saturday.
The family, 34-year-old Natasha Saada and her two daughters, Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5, were killed when Miriam Yarimi, who was driving with a suspended license, allegedly plowed her Audi A3 sedan into a Toyota Camry on Ocean Parkway, violently pushing it aside before her car struck the mother and children who were walking through a crosswalk.
A 4-year-old boy, meanwhile, remains in critical condition at Maimonides Medical Center. The driver of the Camry, a 63-year-old man, was taken to a local hospital in stable condition. Other victims in the crash, a man and three children in the Camry, who also went to a nearby hospital in stable condition.
After news of the horrific collision occurred on March 29, advocates for pedestrian safety offered their condolences but also expressed frustration that a tragedy such as this occurred.
“We are heartbroken and angry that a reckless super speeder has hit and killed three New Yorkers today,” Ben Furnas, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said. “As neighbors exited synagogue on the nicest day of the year, they watched as a crash killed two children and their mother, leaving children’s clothes and shoes strewn across the street from a flipped car.”
‘Wigmaker’ with 780+ violations
Yarimi, aged 32 and lives in Brooklyn, was arrested and faces a slew of charges including reckless driving, speeding, three counts of second-degree manslaughter, four counts of second-degree assault, three counts of criminally negligent homicide, failing to yield right on red and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
According to a New York Post article, Yarimi — a wigmaker who lives a “luxe lifestyle” — and won a $2 million lawsuit from the NYPD alleging she was raped by a uniformed police officer when she was a minor. Records the Post cited show that Yarimi sued the department in 2023, claiming she was 14 years old when she was coerced into sex with the officer.
The allegedly dangerous driver racked up a seemingly endless list of traffic violations — 786 in total — and more than $10,000 in fines, according to the online site, “How’s My Driving.”
‘An unconscionable tragedy’
Meanwhile, people around the city remain angry and looking for answers.
“This is an unconscionable tragedy that Albany can stop from ever happening again,” Furnas from the transportation group said. “The status quo allows super-speeders to continue to put all our lives in danger, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio, co-chair of Families for Safe Streets New York, who lost her 5-year-old son to a traffic crash in 2006, highlighted the Speed Limiters for Repeat Offenders Act that would put a speed limiter in vehicles of the state’s most reckless super speeders.
“We know repeat super speeders are deadly, yet there are cars on our streets with dozens or even hundreds of tickets,” Mendieta-Cuapio said. “We have to ensure that everyone is driving the speed limit, and we can finally do this by passing Speed Limiters for Repeat Offenders.”
She added that Saturday was “the worst day in their lives” for the family involved in the crash.
“These children and their mother should still be alive today,” she said.
