The most dangerous roads in Yonkers are Central Park Avenue, Yonkers Avenue, the Saw Mill River Parkway, and Tuckahoe Road, where it crosses the Sprain Brook Parkway. On Central Park Avenue, the intersections at Arlington Street and Clark Street have been the scene of repeated serious crashes, some of them deadly. Each of these roads is hazardous for a different reason.

Why Yonkers in particular? The city sits on the seam between the Bronx and Westchester County, so it absorbs commuter and freight traffic from both directions. Known as the “City of Seven Hills,” Yonkers is built on hills that slope down toward the Hudson River, so drivers often cannot see far ahead, and steep downhill stretches take longer to stop on. Its parkways were laid out for the slower cars of the 1920s and 1930s, with tight curves, abrupt ramps, and low stone overpasses. And the Saw Mill River valley floods when heavy rain arrives.

Greenspan & Greenspan Injury Lawyers has been helping injured New Yorkers since 1959. Our firm has an office on Main Street in downtown Yonkers and has handled Yonkers car accidents and the claims that follow, from no-fault benefits to lawsuits against negligent drivers and vehicle owners. Consultations are free, and because we work on a contingency fee, you owe nothing unless we recover compensation for you. If you have been injured in a car accident on one of the most dangerous roads in Yonkers, contact our Yonkers personal injury lawyers today.

Central Park Avenue: Highway Volume Meeting Hundreds of Driveways

Central Park Avenue, which carries the State Route 100 designation, behaves like a highway in its traffic volume and like a shopping street in its design. Several lanes move in each direction past a near-continuous row of curb cuts, parking lot exits, bus stops, and median openings where drivers attempt U-turns. That combination produces two of the crash types most likely to cause serious injuries: the broadside collision and the pedestrian strike.

Arlington and Clark Street Intersections

After a series of fatal crashes at the Arlington Street intersection, Yonkers officials met to look for ways to make it safer. Residents blamed parked cars that blocked drivers’ views and U-turns made at the corner, and police responded by stepping up speed enforcement and retiming the traffic signals. Farther north, the crossing at Clark Street has its own history, with repeated pedestrian strikes.

Crashes at intersections like these often come down to two rules. Under New York law, a driver turning left must yield to oncoming traffic, and every driver must yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk and take care to avoid hitting anyone on foot.

Northern End of Central Park Avenue

The northern end of the avenue has a different problem. Where northbound Central Park Avenue feeds the northbound Sprain Brook Parkway, drivers deal with constant backups and sudden lane shifts. Mike Breen, the minority leader of the Yonkers City Council, has described the traffic patterns there as outdated. He blames much of the congestion on toll avoidance: drivers come up the Major Deegan Expressway, then cut over to Central Park Avenue and the Sprain Brook to skip the Thruway toll.

Breen has suggested that removing the northbound toll could ease the buildup. City leaders asked the state to study the corridor, and the New York State Department of Transportation said it would review the city’s resolution.

Backups like this one are where rear-end crashes most often occur. Traffic stops suddenly, and a driver who is too close or not paying attention hits the car in front. A driver who causes one of these crashes can be cited under New York law, which requires every driver to maintain a following distance that is reasonable and prudent for the speed and traffic conditions.

Driving on Central Park Avenue Safely

A few habits make Central Park Avenue far more manageable, whether you drive it every day or only for weekend errands:

  • Treat every driveway as an intersection. Drivers pulling out of shopping plazas are often looking for gaps. Cover your brake as you pass parking lot exits.
  • Expect sudden stops in the left lane. Vehicles ahead may brake hard for a U-turn at a median opening. Leave enough room to stop without swerving into the next lane.
  • Make your own decisions on left turns. Wait for a clear gap or a green arrow, even if drivers behind you honk. If an oncoming driver waves you through, remember that the lane beyond that driver may still be moving.
  • Choose your lane early near the Sprain Brook ramp. Lanes shift and traffic stops without warning, so settle into the correct lane well before the ramp and leave extra space ahead.
  • Slow down near bus stops after dark. Riders getting on and off often cross mid-block, away from the crosswalks.
  • If you are on foot, cross at the signals. Make eye contact with turning drivers before stepping off the curb.

None of these steps adds more than a minute to a trip, and each one removes a chance for someone else’s mistake to become your crash.

Yonkers Avenue and the Left Turn Drivers Should Not Make

Yonkers Avenue has long been one of the busiest stretches in Westchester County, and illegal left turns across fast-moving traffic have been a leading cause of its crashes. The city responded by installing yellow barriers that physically block those turns and force drivers to continue to designated turning points. Barriers reduce conflict points, but they do not eliminate the impatience that produces them, and drivers still cut across traffic where gaps in the barriers allow it.

A driver who ignores the barriers or a posted turn restriction is breaking the law, and that violation can be used to show the driver was at fault.

Driving on Yonkers Avenue Safely

On Yonkers Avenue, most of the risk comes from left turns, so the safest habits center on turning:

  • Plan your turn before you leave. Know which designated turning point you need. If you miss it, continue to the next one and loop back rather than cutting across traffic.
  • Never stop in a travel lane to wait for a gap. Stopping where the barriers prohibit a turn invites a rear-end collision.

The barriers make the avenue safer, but they work best when drivers stop treating them as an obstacle to get around.

Saw Mill River Parkway accidents: A Nearly Century-Old Road Carrying Today’s Traffic

Saw Mill River Parkway accidents in Yonkers tend to come from the same handful of causes, most of them tied to the parkway’s age. It now carries tens of thousands of vehicles a day at modern speeds. The leading causes are:

  • Speeding on curves. Long open stretches tempt drivers to go faster than the tight curves and narrow shoulders can handle, which leaves little room to recover from a mistake.
  • Left turns across oncoming lanes. Some Yonkers exits require drivers to cross opposing lanes, and misjudging a gap in fast traffic can lead to broadside and head-on collisions.
  • Short ramps and abrupt merges. Entrance and exit ramps offer little room to speed up or slow down, so drivers merge too slowly or brake hard in a travel lane, and the cars behind them cannot always stop.
  • Tailgating in rush-hour backups. Traffic bunches up near interchanges such as the Cross County Parkway, and drivers following too closely set off chain-reaction rear-end crashes.
  • Water on the road. Low-lying stretches near Executive Boulevard flood in heavy storms, and drivers who do not slow down on wet pavement hydroplane or drive into standing water.
  • Night driving. Dark, winding sections leave impaired or drowsy drivers almost no margin for error.

Most of these causes come down to drivers moving faster than the road and the conditions allow. New York law requires drivers to slow down in rain, at night, and in curves, even when they are already under the posted speed limit.

Driving on the Saw Mill River Parkway Safely

Because the Saw Mill’s dangers come from its age and its low-lying route, the best protection is planning ahead and adjusting to conditions:

  • Turn around at standing water. Never drive into flooded lanes near Executive Boulevard.
  • Check conditions before a storm commute. In heavy rain, check for closures before you leave, and take another route if the parkway is flooded.
  • Use the whole on-ramp. Build up speed before you merge, and at exits, signal early and brake on the ramp, not in the travel lane.

The parkway rewards patience, especially in bad weather.

Tuckahoe Road Where It Crosses the Sprain Brook

Tuckahoe Road connects the Thruway, the Sprain Brook Parkway, and the Saw Mill River Parkway, so one stretch of road carries highway traffic entering and exiting, local residents, and Bee-Line buses. The overpass above the Sprain Brook is where those pressures meet. In places where opposing lanes are separated by little more than paint, a small mistake, such as an eastbound driver accelerating too hard or taking the curve too fast, can send a vehicle directly into westbound traffic. Head-on collisions are among the most violent crashes on any road, and when one involves a Bee-Line bus, a single crash can injure many people at once.

New York law requires drivers to stay on the right half of the roadway, so a driver who drifts across the center line is at fault for that violation.

Driving on Tuckahoe Road Safely

On Tuckahoe Road, the goal is to give yourself time and space to react, especially on the overpass:

  • Slow down on the overpass. Reduce speed before the curve, especially in wet weather, and leave extra room behind buses, which stop frequently along this corridor.
  • Watch the oncoming traffic. Brake before entering the curve rather than in it, especially in wet weather, and leave extra room behind buses, which stop frequently along this corridor.

A head-on crash usually begins with a single moment of speed or inattention, and these habits buy back the seconds needed to avoid one.

What Should You Do If You Were Hurt on One of These Roads?

The most dangerous roads in Yonkers share a common thread: each asks drivers to manage more than the road was built to handle, whether that is retail traffic on Central Park Avenue, illegal turns on Yonkers Avenue, or floodwater and tight curves on the Saw Mill. The dangerous intersections in Yonkers are not random. They are predictable, which means the evidence of what went wrong is often predictable too.

If you have already been hurt in a crash on one of these roads, a car accident lawyer Yonkers residents can reach downtown will review what happened, deal with the insurance companies, and make sure no deadline passes while you recover. Claims involving a state road or a county bus carry much shorter deadlines than a typical injury claim, some as short as 90 days. The earlier you speak with a Yonkers car accident attorney, the better, because surveillance video from businesses along roads like Central Park Avenue is often recorded over within days, and witnesses become harder to find with every week that passes.

At Greenspan & Greenspan Injury Lawyers, we make sure our clients in Yonkers understand where their case stands at every step and what their options are before any decision is made. Our attorneys work to make sure an injury does not leave you paying for someone else’s mistake. Contact Greenspan & Greenspan Injury Lawyers today for a free consultation.

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A dedicated attorney with bar admissions in New York, Florida, and the Supreme Court of the United States, has a deep-rooted commitment to his community. Since 1992, he has been a certified high school track and field official and an Executive Committee member of the Glenn D. Loucks Games. He serves on the Board of Directors of the JCC-Rockland and has devoted over a decade to coaching youth sports in Rockland County. Mike was recognized by the County of Rockland as well as the American Association for Justice for his distinguished service in providing free legal representation through the Trial Lawyers Care program for families of victims of the September 11th attacks. He represents clients across a wide range of legal practice areas.

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