Man dead in Gowanus Expressway crash in Brooklyn was Uber driver and groom-to-be: ‘Everyone is just crying now,’ cousin says

A driver who was killed over the weekend in a crash on a busy Brooklyn highway was a hardworking immigrant with plans to get married in the new year.

“Nobody truly believes that he’s gone. It’s a shock,” Anisha Thapa, the victim’s cousin, told the Daily News on Sunday.

Victim Manoj Thapa, 32, relocated to Queens from New Jersey early last year and soon became an Uber driver.

“[Our] family was already here, and he was planning to do Uber so he just moved here,” said Anisha Thapa, whose family including her cousin is originally from Nepal. “It’s a big city, so there would be more fares.”

“He liked the city,” she added.

Manoj Thapa, 32, was an Uber driver and planned to get married this year.

Manoj Thapa was finishing up a shift while driving on the Gowanus Expressway near 56th St. in Sunset Park on Saturday when he was rear-ended at around 1:15 a.m., cops said.

The victim pulled his rented Toyota Camry into the right lane, where the person who struck his car had him parked their Toyota Venza.

Thapa and the other driver got out of their vehicles to inspect the damage.

As they were checking, a motorist driving a BMW hit Thapa, pinning him to the rear of his Toyota Camry, said police.

He died at the scene. The BMW driver and the Venza driver were treated for minor injuries at Lutheran Hospital Center.

“The guy who hit him called 911,” said Anisha Thapa. “The car that hit him initially didn’t do too much damage, it was a minor accident.”

The woman was surprised that her cousin, whom she repeatedly described as an excellent driver, would die in a car crash.

“He used to drive so focused, he didn’t want to cause any accidents,” she said. “He was so focused, he was a good driver.”

Before the crash, Thapa had called his roommate to tell him he was on his way home and was just doing one last ride.

Thapa’s local relatives called his mother, father and other family members he left back in Nepal.

“I heard the father fainted when he heard the news, and [they] had to take him to the hospital,” said Anisha Thapa. “He fell unconscious.”

Most of the man’s family still lives in the south Asian country.

“He is here by himself,” she said. “He was working and sending money back home. He came here to support his family.”

“He would send his money to his mom and dad,” the cousin added.

Thapa worked six or seven days a week to save enough money to support his parents.

“He was always working, he was so nice,” she said. “He was a hard worker. He loved his mom so much.”

Thapa had plans to complete the lengthy green card process, return to Nepal in February and marry a woman. Instead, his parents will be bringing his body back to the country to be buried.

“He was happy about the process because it seemed like he was finally going to get his green card,” Anisha Thapa said.

The man had lived in the states for seven years, where he worked at a grocery store in New Jersey before moving in with a roommate in Ridgewood, Queens.

“He was like such a calm person. He doesn’t talk loud, and he only speaks what you need [to hear] and doesn’t keep talking extra,” Anisha Thapa said. “Everyone is just crying now.”

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