Guardrail height may be issue in deadly NY crash

NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York City official says the height of the guardrails on a highway overpass in the Bronx will be among the factors examined in the probe of a deadly crash.

Seven people from three generations of a family -- including three children -- were killed when the SUV they were traveling in plunged more than 50 feet off the overpass yesterday and into a ravine on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.

It landed in a wooded area on the edge of zoo property that is closed to the public and far from any animal exhibits.

The accident was the second in the past year in which a car fell from the same stretch of the Bronx River Parkway.

A neighbor tells the Daily News that the victims were "a good, wholesale family." She says, "The mother always kept an eye on her children."

Relatives say the two grandparents who died had arrived from the Dominican Republic three days earlier. They were headed to a family party when the accident occurred.