Emily Fredbloom Dies After Taxi Crash on the LaSalle Street Speedway

The 1400 block of North LaSalle, where Emily Fredbloom was struck.

Last Friday, Emily Fredbloom, 26, died from injuries sustained in late August, when she was struck by a cab driver while crossing LaSalle Street in Old Town.

On the Near North Side, LaSalle is a wide, five-lane street, which encourages speeding by drivers, and creates wide crossing distances for pedestrians. These issues were, or may have been, factors in a several recent serious crashes on this stretch of LaSalle.

On March 23, 2012, around 2:30 a.m., law student Jesse Bradley, 32, was crossing LaSalle westbound at Division Street (1200 North). Southbound motorist Bianca Garcia fatally struck him and fled the scene. Witnesses said she driving at a high rate of speed, and tests found she was intoxicated. Last July, Garcia was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Last Tuesday, September 16, around 4:50 a.m., a 23-year-old man was attempting to cross LaSalle at Chicago Avenue (800 North). Witnesses said the man “darted” across the street and was hit by a southbound female motorist, according to police. The man was critically injured and the driver was not cited.

In the most recent case, Fredbloom, a resident of south-suburban Lansing, was trying to cross westbound on the 1400 block of North LaSalle on Saturday, August 30, around 2:05 a.m., according to Officer Janel Sedovic from News Affairs. Witnesses say Fredbloom, who worked at a nurse at Northwestern Hospital, “bolted out into the street,” according to Sedovic.

Fredbloom was struck by a northbound cab driver, Sedovic said. The driver, a 51-year-old man, was cited for failure to exercise due care for a pedestrian in the roadway, and failure to reduce speed to avoid a crash.

Fredbloom was taken to Northwestern, where she was pronounced dead last Friday at 4:29 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy performed Sunday found that she died from complications that arose from injuries sustained in the crash.

Better enforcement of the 30 mph speed limit, along with reconfiguring LaSalle to calm traffic and make it easier to cross the street, could help prevent these kind of tragedies in the future.

Fatality Tracker: 2014 Chicago pedestrian and bicyclist deaths
Pedestrian: 21 (6 were hit-and-run crashes)
Bicyclist: 7 (1 was a hit-and-run crash)