Recently, a reckless driver caused a car crash that killed beloved great-grandmother Maria Ochoa, 88, while she was out on a walk in Chicago's Garfield Ridge. Her family members and neighbors are demanding that the City make safety improvements to help prevent future traffic violence in the area.
According to the initial Chicago Police Department statement, on Saturday, May 24, around 5:30 p.m., Ochoa was walking at the intersection of Archer and Laramie avenues. Here Archer is a four-lane "stroad," which encourages speeding.
Police said the 26-year old driver of a northwest-bound silver SUV attempted to make a left turn and was struck by the driver of a gray sedan. The SUV then hit Ochoa. She was transported to Christ Hospital and later pronounced dead.
The drivers and their passengers were uninjured. The sedan driver was cited.
The Illinois Traffic Crash Report, completed by responding officers, provides more details about what reportedly happened. According to the narrative on the document, as police were driving northeast on Archer near Linder, a westbound bus driver honked his horn to get their attention. He told them there had been a car crash with a flipped vehicle at Archer/Laramie, a few blocks east.
When the officers got to Archer/Laramie, they saw the sedan, a 1999 Ford Escort, in the middle of the intersection with heavy front-end damage, the crash report states. The SUV, a 2012 Chevrolet Equinox, was laying its side at the north leg of the intersection, and a crowd was gathered behind it.
Then they saw Ochoa, who lived a few blocks away and was out for a walk, lying unresponsive on the sidewalk while two doctors performed CPR on her, according to the narrative. First responders soon arrived and began performing life-saving measures and took her to the hospital.
A witness, who had been driving southwest behind the sedan, told the responding officers they had a green light when the SUV driver "suddenly made a left turn from Archer to go northbound on Laramie." The sedan driver, who was going at a high rate of speed, was unable to stop and hit the SUV, which then hit Ochoa in the crosswalk. The sedan driver provided a similar account to the police.
The SUV driver then told officers he made the left turn "believing he had the right of way," the report states. Obviously, turning motorists must yield to oncoming drivers when both have a green. The SUV driver was taken to Holy Cross Hospital for DUI testing. He was later cited for speeding and driving without insurance.
On Sunday evening, Ochoa's family held a vigil to demand infrastructure and enforcement to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future, according to a Sun-Times report. "She was a good woman, never harmed nobody, and was a faithful woman," her son Alberto Ochoa told the crowd. He called on the City to take steps to make the areas safer for all road users. "Please do something for this community if you want to remember my mom."
His brother Fernando Ochoa, said the area is plagued with reckless drivers, and he wants more speed cameras, traffic calming, and fines for lawbreakers, according to the Sun-Times. "Every night I hear this going on down Archer Avenue, down 55th, cars drag racing, there’s no speed bumps around here," he said. "We’ve been asking for this stuff for a while and nothing happened. We have no speed cameras here at all."
The crash location is in the 23rd Ward, represented by Ald. Silvana Tabares. In February, she helped defeat the proposal for lowering Chicago's default speed limit from 30 to 25 mph, a strategy which has reduced the number of serious and fatal crashes in peer cities like New York.
Drivers have killed several people walking and biking on Archer since 2020, including at least three senior citizens. All of the seniors were struck within Ald. Tabares' current ward boundaries. Here are the reported cases.
• In August 2020, a left-turning pickup driver failed to yield and struck and killed bike rider Jan Kopec, 83, as he rode his bike at Archer and Kostner in the Archer Heights neighborhood.
• On February 2024, a pickup driver failed to yield while making a left turn, fatally striking married couple Zofia Chruszcz, 72, and Ryszard Stebnicki, 75, in a crosswalk at Archer and McVicker avenues in Garfield Ridge.
• On February 2024 the speeding driver of a large vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk at Pershing Road and Archer Avenue in Brighton Park.
There also were many motorist deaths on Archer during that time. In early 2021, in the wake of multiple fatal collisions, the Archer Heights Civic Association published an open letter saying that the organization "supports automated traffic law enforcement -- and wants more of it." Currently, the only speed cameras along Archer on the Southwest Side are at Pulaski Road.
Shockingly, an SUV driver struck yet another senior last Wednesday June 4, on Archer at Laramie, the same intersection where the driver killed Ochoa. According to the initial CPD statement, around 1:44 p.m., a woman, 73, was crossing the street when a female motorist, 51, hit her, sending her to the hospital with minor injuries. The driver was cited.
The bus operator who alerted the police about Ochoa's crash provides Midway Airport shuttle service, and often drives on Archer. He told the Sun-Times the avenue is chronically dangerous due to extreme speeding and red light running. "It’s really stressful driving out there," he told the paper. "I don’t know what the solution is."
Before and after a road diet on Broadway in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood that converted excess travel lanes to parking-protected bike lanes. Images: Google Maps, John Greenfield
In addition to more speed and red light cameras, the answer is infrastructure upgrades. Along with street redesigns to shorten pedestrian crossing distances and calm traffic, like sidewalk extensions and raised sidewalks, a four-to-three conversion road diet is badly needed. That would provide right-of-way for wider sidewalks and/or protected bike lanes, and encourage motorists to drive at non-lethal speeds.
Watch the ABC News report here.
Read the Sun-times article here.
Fatality Tracker: 2025 Chicago pedestrian and bicyclist deaths on surface streets
Pedestrian: 11
Bicyclist: 1
Streetsblog Chicago’s traffic death numbers represent fatal crashes on Chicago surface streets, based on media reports and/or preliminary Chicago Police Department data.
2025 Chicago pedestrian fatality cases
• On January 5, 2025, a Jeep driver fatally struck Alex Rivera, 32, in the 2600 block of West 60th Street in the Chicago Lawn community area.
• On January 24, 2025, a hit-and-run SUV driver struck and killed Halyna Hudzan, 66, on the 700 block of North Oakley Boulevard in West Town.
• On February 1, 2025, a truck driver struck and killed Hattie Mickell, 76, walking in the street on the 0-100 block of South Western Avenue on the Near West Side.
• On March 14, 2025, a motorcycle rider fatally struck Camryn Green, 26, as she crossed the street in the 6500 block of Higgins Avenue in Norwood Park.
• On March 17, 2025, a sedan driver sideswiped another car, then jumped the curb and fatally struck Jamie Cerney, 38, on the sidewalk of the 5200 block of West 63rd Street in Clearing.
• On April 7, 2025, a pickup driver fatally struck a 72-year-old man trying to cross DuSable Lake Shore Drive at Roosevelt Road in the Loop.
• On April 29, 2025, an allegedly intoxicated sedan driver fatally struck a woman, 25, on the sidewalk near 13th Street and Lawndale Avenue in North Lawndale.
• On May 13, 2025, an allegedly drunk SUV driver fatally struck a man, 76, on the 7000 South block of Western Avenue in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood and fled the scene.
• On May 16, 2025, a semi truck reportedly disobeyed his traffic signal when making a right turn and ran over and killed a 44-year-old man in the crosswalk at Cermak and Ashland avenues in Pilsen.
• On May 24, an SUV driver failed to yield while making a left turn, causing a crash and fatally striking Maria Ochoa, 88, at Archer and Laramie avenues in Garfield Ridge.
2025 Chicago bike fatality cases
• On May 26, 2025, a Hummer SUV driver fatally struck Yader Castaneda, 18, at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue in the Loop.
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