Brooklyn Garbage Truck Driver Totals at Least 9 Cars While Drunk
A Viking Sanitation truck driver drove while intoxicated, smashing into parked cars, trees, and a front porch.
A Brooklyn garbage truck driver crashed in the neighborhood of Borough Park while driving under the influence Saturday, totaling at least nine cars, according to CBS local news.
The driver, Anthony Castaldo, 40, was charged with driving while impaired, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and refusing to take a breathalyzer test, according to ABC7NY.
Footage shows the out-of-control garbage truck smashing into a long line of parked cars and damaging a number of trees before hitting a front porch near 60th Street and 19th Avenue in Brooklyn.
“I come out just to see where he is,” said a witness to ABC7NY. “ I said what did you do here, how did you lose control of your car, or truck. He didn’t answer me. He jumped out, ran there, went all the way around on 19th Avenue to 59th street and that’s where he ran into a chain-link fence, and that’s where they subdued him.”
According to the New York Daily News, the criminal complaint of Castaldo's collision states that his speech was slurred, walked with an “unsteady gait,” and smelled of alcohol.
Viking Sanitation, Castaldo’s employer, said he has been suspended. The company also told CBS that it has a “long track record of safety.”
According to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Castaldo has a record of four misdemeanor arrests, including one reckless driving charge from 2016, the New York Daily News reports.
The Daily News also reported that 43 New Yorkers from 2010 to 2017 were killed as the result of crashes involving private trash carters.
Castaldo was released on bail Sunday. His brother and girlfriend posted the $5,000 needed to release him which prosecutors wanted to set at $7,500.
