A New Jersey dad caused the Queens crash that killed him and a bicyclist when he tried to pass a slower bike rider on a standing motorized scooter, cops said Saturday.
Francis Delvalle, 39, was operating a Teverun Blade GT stand-up electric scooter westbound on a Queensboro Bridge path when he veered left into oncoming traffic to pass a bicyclist around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, cops said.
That’s when he slammed into bicyclist Dmytro Stechenko, 35, who was heading the other way, cops said.
EMS rushed Delvalle, of Paramus, and Stechenko, of Queens, to Weill Cornell Surgery at New York-Presbyterian Queens in Flushing, where they later died, authorities said.
Stechenko, originally from Ukraine, was a software engineer at Meta, according to his social media.
Delvalle was wearing a DOT approved, full-face helmet, police sources said. Stechenko was also wearing a helmet.
The speed limit on the path is 15 miles per hour. It wasn’t clear how fast the riders were going, cops said.
One of Devalle’s friends, Rachel Huynh, told ABC 7 that he leaves behind a wife and two kids.
“His wife is in bad shape, especially with the kids,” she said.
“I can’t imagine. He was a really great husband to her, and they’ve been going out to vacations, exploring the whole world.”