Investigators left their mark where pedestrian was killed

This is the Leonia intersection and crosswalk where Leyla Kan, 60, of Fort Lee was struck by a school bus on Thursday morning, then dragged and killed. The dark, curving mark visible on the Broad Avenue pavement on Saturday was left by the vehicle's tire as Kan was dragged about 71 feet.

The yellow box marked by investigators on the Broad Avenue crosswalk is said to be where Kan was when she was hit by the school bus, which was turning left from Fort Lee Road toward Englewood. The driver didn't yield to her, police said. The Record's one story on the fatal accident didn't say whether Kan was in the crosswalk.

These markings at the end of the heavy tire skid mark may indicate where Kan's body came to rest.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The door to Picnic Cafe, the pizza-and-pita restaurant owned by Leyla Kan, was open on Saturday and I could hear people seated inside fondly remembering the woman who was killed by a school bus as she crossed the street in Leonia on Thursday morning.

A notice on the window of the Palisades Park cafe said the family of the 60-year-old Fort Lee woman will receive friends from 10 a.m. to noon Monday at McCorry Bros. Funeral Home in Cliffside Park.

Picnic Cafe is on the same street, Broad Avenue, where Kan was killed.

Despite all the unanswered questions surrounding Kan's untimely death, The Record hasn't done a follow-up nor have the editors seen fit to call for a change in the law that would hold drivers criminally responsible for pedestrian deaths.

Only summonses

Esperanza Jaramillo, 54, the bus driver, received summonses for careless driving, failure to yield to a pedestrian who had the right of way and driving a vehicle with badly worn tires.

The poorly reported and edited story on Thursday noted Kan "was struck by the protruding passenger compartment of the minibus behind the door, apparently unseen by Jaramillo."

"Apparently unseen" was the best The Record could do to explain how the turning driver could hit a pedestrian in the crosswalk on Broad Avenue in Leonia, drag the victim 71 feet and not realize it.

Today's paper

The Record's Sunday edition today is one of the thinnest and most disappointing in recent memory.

The main element on Page 1 is a silly report by Staff Writer Christopher Maag on Richard "I Am Not a Crook" Nixon's life in North Jersey after he resigned the presidency in disgrace 40 years ago Saturday (A-1).

In another front-page story, The Record is finally getting around to discussing the impact of a shortage of judges on people involved in divorces and other cases in Bergen County (A-1).

I guess from the Woodland Park newsroom, Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza can't see all of the crime victims waiting for justice in Hackensack.

Road litter

On the Local front, the Road Warrior column continues to harp on the unprotected homes along Route 17 south where a Waldwick police radar officer was killed by a tractor-trailer on July 17 (L-1).

For his last Road Warrior column, Staff Writer John Cichowski made a rare trip to the antiquated Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan -- where North Jersey commuters face long delays in getting home -- and looked for the most irrelevant story he could find among the gridlocked buses.

In the process, Cichowski put his foot in his mouth once again, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Thursday column, the Road Warrior takes on the simplest of tasks and messes it up with his inept reporting about the statue of Ralph Kramden, the Jackie Gleason bus driver from 'The Honeymooners' TV series, in front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and related mass transit issues.

"Road Warrior reports about the virtue of a bus driver calling riders on his cellphone to alert them that their bus was running late, and likened the virtue of this bus driver to Ralph Kramden.

"However, this virtue is contradicted by the facts, which the Road Warrior has frequently addressed in his columns, that the bus driver’s use of a cellphone, hand-held or hands free, greatly increases the risk of an accident and would endanger passengers. It also potentially violates New Jersey cellphone law if the driver is using a hand-held cellphone.

"As Ralph Kramden would frequently exclaim when faced with implausible distortions and sadly worthless statements: 'Har! Har! Hardy! Har! Har!'"

Cichowski also got the bus terminal's age wrong -- again -- and mistakenly reported that $800 million had been proposed to "refurbish" the building when, in fact, the money had been earmarked for a new bus parking garage in the city.

For a full report on the confused Cichowski's continuing ineptitude, see:  

Where am I and how do I get home?

Vegetable high

Readers are staring in disbelief at an Elisa Ung column on the Better Living front about a Sussex County farm, glorious vegetables and the Bergen County chefs who praise and use them in their kitchens (BL-1).

In her many years of food writing for The Record, Ung has shunned salads and become known as the queen of meat and desserts -- and just about any other artery clogging food.