A 24-year-old man was killed Monday in a crash involving five cars on the Long Island Expressway service road near exit 57, police say. Police say the incident happened before 9 a.m. and involved a 2023 Mack garbage truck. Police say Jaswinder Singh was driving an eastbound garbage truck on Express Drive South when he overturned a Honda Accord 2019 stopped at junction with Motor Parkway. Police say the vehicle then swept over a school bus before crashing into the back of a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee. They claim the Jeep got stuck in the front of the garbage truck. The 2009 Toyota Matrix was struck by the Jeep and spun out of control before colliding with a utility pole. Smithtown witness Michael Hofmann immediately came to the aid of the driver of a Jeep that had been hit. “We ran and got the woman out of the car,” Hofman says. They said, “She was pretty stoned.”
According to Preet Singh, manager of a gas station near the intersection where the incident occurred, the garbage truck slammed into the Jeep after it collided with the white car the young man was in. 24 year old was killed. “It looks like it went into the air and hit the Jeep and hit that third car,” Singh says. Police say the driver of the Honda Accord, identified as West Islip resident Joseph Kelly, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The drivers of the Jeep and Toyota reportedly sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to hospital.
A New York City Department of Sanitation representative said the truck was brand new and driven by a private seller; the department had not yet acquired custody of the vehicle. A sobriety test was administered to this motorist at the site. The three toddlers on the school bus are safe and sound, police said. Bellerose’s own Singh escaped unscathed. Several court summonses were sent to him.
For security reasons, the truck and three other cars were confiscated.
