Three Teenagers Thrown From SUV and Killed in Brooklyn Highway Crash; Four Others Hurt

Three teenagers were killed in a crash on a Brooklyn highway after the sport utility vehicle they were riding in wrecked and threw them from the cabin, authorities said. The driver and two passengers were ejected and later pronounced dead at a hospital. Four other people were injured in the crash.

Police said the victims, all teenagers, had not been publicly identified pending notification of their families. The four injured people were also taken for treatment; officials had not released their conditions or said whether they were riding in the same vehicle. It was not immediately clear whether a second vehicle was involved.

Detectives with the Police Department's Highway Collision Investigation Squad, the unit that responds to every fatal crash in the five boroughs, took over the scene. Investigators typically reconstruct the vehicle's path, measure skid marks, pull data from the SUV's onboard systems and canvass for surveillance and dash-camera footage before determining whether speed, impairment or a mechanical failure played a role. No charges had been announced.

Safety researchers say ejection is among the deadliest outcomes in any wreck. Federal crash data have long shown that people thrown from a vehicle are far more likely to be killed than those who remain inside, and that seat belts sharply reduce the odds of ejection. Authorities did not say whether the teenagers were belted.

The driver and two passengers were thrown from the SUV and pronounced dead at a hospital. Four other people were injured.

The wreck adds to a grim ledger on Brooklyn's high-speed corridors, where the Belt Parkway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway have produced some of the city's most catastrophic crashes. Both roadways have figured prominently in the city's Vision Zero debates, with advocates pressing for redesigned ramps, better lighting and expanded automated speed enforcement on limited-access highways.

The timing compounds the loss. The stretch between Memorial Day and Labor Day — what traffic-safety groups call the 100 deadliest days for teenage drivers — has historically brought a spike in fatal teen crashes, as younger motorists log more miles at night, often with friends in the car and without an adult present.

The crash also lands just ahead of the new school year, when grief counselors across the city typically brace for exactly this kind of call. Education officials have said in past cases that support teams are made available to any school community affected by a student's death, whether the loss comes in September or in the final days of summer.

The investigation remained open, and police said additional details would be released as they were confirmed. For now, a family somewhere in the city is waiting on a knock at the door, and four more people are recovering from a night that turned three teenagers into statistics on a road that has claimed too many before them.