MANGLED: The vehicles lie wrecked on Delancey Street yesterday after the trash truck plowed into them. (Photos: thelowdownny.com)
The trash truck. (thelowdown.com)
An out-of-control garbage truck turned a row of parked cars into scrap metal on the Lower East Side yesterday morning after its driver fell asleep and plowed the vehicle into them, cops said.
“It looked like a monster truck in a demolition derby!” said witness George Oliveraz, 50, of the trash hauler as it careened into the cars on Delancey Street, leaving crumpled bumpers, cracked headlights and shattered mirrors and windshields strewn in its wake.
“It hit car after car after car, until it couldn’t go anymore. When it stopped, its wheel was resting on somebody’s hood,’’ said Oliveraz, a cabby who was idling his taxi near the scene at the time.
Police said the private truck, owned by Imperial Sanitation of Astoria, Queens, was traveling westbound on Delancey between Sherriff and Willet streets at around 4 a.m. when the overtired driver lost control and slammed into eight cars.
Most of the cars were crushed from their bumpers to the front of their roofs, and many had been pushed partly onto the sidewalk by the force.
“The cars looked like pieces of bread you could crush in your hands,” said cabby Tony Armonte, 58. “One car was so destroyed, it wouldn’t even be good for parts.”
“Thank God no one was inside any of the cars,” he added.
The driver, whose name was not released, was not charged, police said.