Sixers

Philadelphia’s Hit and Run Record is Not Good

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Nov 13th, 2023 · 10:13 AM EST

---

There hasn’t been much of an update on Kelly Oubre Jr. since Saturday night’s hit and run. Action News published this on Monday morning:

The search continues Monday for a vehicle and its driver after Philadelphia 76ers guard Kelly Oubre Jr. was hit by a car Saturday night. Police said they are searching for a silver vehicle that was seen leaving the scene.

…

According to police, Oubre was walking on the 1400 block of Spruce Street, crossing Hicks Street, when he was hit by a car that was trying to turn onto Hicks.

The silver vehicle struck Oubre Jr. in the upper chest with the driver-side mirror before fleeing the scene, police said.

Oubre has a broken rib and injuries to his right hip and leg.

What’s most ridiculous, perhaps, is that a basketball player who is 6’7″ was struck in the “upper chest” by the driver-side mirror. Was the driver steering a tank? A massive SUV? This was Center City as well, in front of a side street about a block down from Monk’s Cafe. It wasn’t like Oubre was walking on the Roosevelt Boulevard at 1 a.m.

The thing about Philadelphia is that it’s one of the worst hit-and-run cities. Last year, Channel 3 did a story, citing police data, that revealed there were more than 30 hit-and-run deaths in 2022.

From Matt Petrillo:

Data shows there have been 32 fatal hit-and-run crashes in Philly this year. That’s an increase over each of the last four years and three times as many hit-and-run deaths when compared to 2019.

“There’s a sense of a lack of care for each other,” said (Sharieff Ali, of the Germantown Traffic Safety Coalition). “People are just behaving poorly.” 

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia also looked into the police data and reported this:

Hit and runs reached an all time high in 2022, which means that hit and runs are rising as a percentage of all fatalities (20% in 2020; 28% in 2022).  In 2020-2022, pedestrians comprised 60-70% of the victims of hit and run fatal crashes.

I can’t tell you how many of these stories we did at Eyewitness News back in the day. It felt like we had a deadly hit-and-run at least once per week, and it took months to find the drivers, if they were found at all. It’s terrible. It’s a big problem in Philadelphia. Hopefully Kelly Oubre is back out there sooner rather than later.