COKE TRAGEDY
Driver busted as high in mowdown of cyclist
A DRIVER WHO tested positive for cocaine has been arrested for fatally striking a bicyclist in Brooklyn, police sources said.
Eduard Nikhman, 27, ran a red light in his westbound 2012 Honda on Avenue P at E. 12th St. in Midwood just before 10 p.m. Monday and hit a southbound 2015 Infiniti Q50, which slammed into the bicyclist, police sources said.
Even though Nikhman consented to a drug test, the case highlights a loophole that allows a driver to refuse a mouth-swab test for drugs without facing criminal charges.
The cyclist was in the crosswalk and was just starting to make his way across E. 12th St. when he was struck, police said.
Police have not been able to identify him, but believe he is in his 20s.
Nikhman was taken to Lutheran Medical Center with chest pains and arrested after testing positive for cocaine.
He was charged with criminally negligent homicide and vehicular manslaughter.
The superintendent of Nikhman’s building, Javanny Rivera, 28, said the man’s mother was shocked because he had previously been in a drug-treatment program.
Rivera said he saw Nikhman right before the accident.
“He double-parked his car in front,” he said. “He ran inside. I thought he might stop to talk, but by the time I turned my back, he was gone. He just jumped in the car and took off.”
Nikhman was to be arraigned Tuesday night.
Sources said he tested positive for cocaine at the scene via the so-called Drager Test, a portable mouth-swab device the NYPD began using in 2015.
Nikhman was only tested at the scene because he gave his consent, authorities said.
Under current law, cops can order drivers to submit to a breath test for alcohol, and if they refuse, their license is automatically suspended. But until the Drager Test, the department had no similar field test for drugs.
Cops can’t arrest a driver or suspend a license for refusing to take the swab test without indications of drug use, such as slurred speech.
In 2013, the state Senate passed a bill that would have eliminated the loophole, but the measure stalled in the Assembly’s Transportation Committee.
Typically, a second test at the precinct yields more detailed results, including the level of the drugs in the bloodstream. But those tests take longer to run. briefly pinned between the two vehicles, officials said.
Paramedics rushed him to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, but he could not be saved.
The driver of the Hyundai, also an elderly man, told police he meant to put his car into drive but accidentally threw it into reverse before backing into the man, witnesses said.
No charges have been filed.