Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Auto Accidents

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car that hit the bicyclistA 76 year old man was critically injured in a bicycle accident in NYC last Friday. The man was riding his bike North on Colden Street in Queens, New York City.  He was struck by a car at the intersection of Colden Street and Elder Avenue around 5:30 pm. The car driver didn’t stop. He fled the scene of the accident leaving behind a man suffering critical personal injury.

The NYPD is still looking for the suspect who was driving a teal-colored Honda CRV. He was seen fleeing South on Kissena Boulevard from Franklin Avenue.

If you have any information about the suspected hit and run driver you can call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS or for Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577. Below is a video of the car just before the bicycle accident. Read More.

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Vision Zero was launched in an attempt to reduce pedestrian and bicyclists deaths in NYC. However, in an unexpected twist, the program primarily helped in curbing motorists deaths. 

Back in 2013 before Vision  Zero started, 286 people died and 54,818 suffered personal injury in motor vehicle accidents in New York City. Among the 286 deaths were 168 pedestrians, many of them children and elderly. In New York City, car accidents have been the leading cause of child deaths for many years. According to statistics, two thirds of the children involved in fatal accidents were child pedestrians being struck by cars. Elderly are also at higher risk of being struck by cars in New York City, especially after sunset when the visibility is reduced.

When Bill de Blasio became Mayor on January 1st 2014, he pledged to change this situation and provide safe streets for New York families.  Vision Zero was launched for this purpose in January 2014 and is still ongoing. The program includes various initiatives such as speed limit reduction, dangerous streets re-design and  more forceful prosecution of traffic violations. Since the program started, the total number of traffic deaths gradually declined from 286 in 2013 before the program to 250 in 2014, 235 in 2015 and 223 in 2016. From the beginning of 2014 to the end of 2016, the total number of traffic deaths declined by 22% in New York City.

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accident sceneA speeding young driver almost lost his life in a New York City car crash while his passenger only suffered minor injuries. The accident occurred on Saturday morning around 11:00 am. The 21 year old driver and his passenger were riding their car on the Bronx River Parkway near E. 173rd St. According to the New York Daily News, the driver was speeding when he clipped a taxi and lost control of his vehicle. He then hit the median and flipped several time across the parkway before landing on the grass next to the road. The car was totally crushed. Paramedics had to cut the car to remove the driver and his passenger from it. The driver who was critically injured was rushed to the hospital. The passenger miraculously only suffered minor injuries.

 

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young driverPeople who are driving after recovering from a concussion may be at higher risk of a car accident. A recent study lead by Julianne Schmidt, associate professor in the UGA College of Education’s department of kinesiology shows that despite being asymptomatic, people who recently suffered concussion may drive erratically. The study was recently published in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

During the study, Julianne Schmidt and her team compared the driving skills of 14 students who suffered concussion but were symptom free with the driving skills of 14 students who didn’t suffer from concussion. Participants were required to to complete a graded symptom checklist and a neuropsychological exam. Participants with concussion were asked to take a 20.5 km driving test within 48 hours of becoming asymptomatic. Healthy participants of the same age were required to complete the same driving test.

The study showed that participants who previously suffered concussion but were cleared of symptoms exhibited driving behavior similar to someone driving under the influence of alcohol.  The researchers compared the number of crashes between the two groups of students as well as the number of tickets, the number of lane excursion, the way they were driving in curves and their speed. They found out that concussed participants were not well controlling their vehicles especially when driving in the curves. They also swerved a lot more than healthy drivers putting themselves and other road users at a greater risk of accidents.

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assan jones died in a NYC car accidentA young man died in a NYC car accident early last Saturday. Hassan Jones, a 28 year old US Army veteran, was driving with his cousin on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens when they bumped into a SUV in front of them. Both cars stopped on the side of the road. The two occupants of the SUV stepped out and as Hassan and his cousin did the same. An argument followed. One of the SUV passengers punched Jones. He fell to the ground. He was struck by a car and dragged several feet on the road. He died at the scene of the accident. After realizing what happened, the driver stopped. He panicked, abandoned his car and ran away on foot. He was later on found by the police and identified as 19 year old Starlyn Colon-Burgess. He was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident. According to the NY Daily News both cars involved in the first accident also fled the scene of the accident but the police were able to find them.

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Driver free carAfter decades of steady decline, deadly car accidents are on the rise again in the U.S.  According to the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety, 17,775 people died on American roads during the first six months of 2016. Compared to the same period of 2015, the number of traffic fatalities increased by 10.4%.  This is the biggest spike in 50 years. The new Transportation Secretary will have to identify ways of  reversing this alarming increase of traffic deaths. Distracted driving is the number one cause of fatal crashes.  A few year ago distracted driving was mostly related to people calling or texting while driving. These days all kind of apps are being used by motorists while driving.

Another difficult task, also related to new technologies, that Ms Chao will have to handle is the development of regulations for automated cars. Car safety advocates who have previously emitted  concerns about the Obama administration’s lack of strong safety regulation in this field are now even more worried. With the Trump administration’s anti-regulation stance, there is a significant risk that many road users will die in the near future as a result of auto-makers being allowed to launch automated cars in an almost self-regulated environment.

Read more in Fairwarning

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Bianca Bennett died in a NYC crashA NYPD officer died and a sergeant was seriously injured in a car accident that occurred last week in the Bronx. 27 year old rookie officer Bianca Bennett was a passenger in a car driven by Sergeant Randolph Price. Both cops were off-duty. They were returning from a diner with friends in City Island.  Price who was speeding, lost control of his vehicle and careened into a tree stump. The car flipped upside down and burst into flames. Two other cops on their way home from the firing range saw the accident and ran to the rescue. They were able to pull Price out of the flames but it was too late to save Bennett. According to them she was so badly burned that it was impossible to determine if she was a woman or a man.  27 year old Bennett was fiancee to her high school sweetheart Micheal Coleman, they were about to get married in April. A vigil was held yesterday in the East Village. Read more in the NY Daily News

 

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The number of pedestrians hit by cars in The NYC 112th Precinct increased by 64% in January 2017 compared to January 2016. Last month 23 people were struck by cars in Forest Hill and Rego Park in Queens compared to 14 during the same period of 2016. Many of the pedestrian accidents occurred during a turn. In order to try to reduce these types of crashes, the NYPD 112th Precinct launched a campaign to tell motorists to be careful while driving through an intersection or trough crosswalks. Last week officers handed flyers to motorists containing Zero Vision information and also specific reminder about speed, not cutting corners and being especially on the look out for pedestrians after sunset. Read more in DNA Info

tweet from the NYPD to prevent pedestrian accidents

 

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Car accident on the Taconic Parkway2,080 crashes occurred on the New York Taconic State Parkway over a period of 3 years. While being a picturesque scenic road that was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, the road has a horrific history of  severe traffic accidents.

In 2009 a 36 year old mother driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana entered the Taconic highway in the wrong direction. She had 4 passengers, all children. There were her daughter and 3 nieces. She collided with a SUV after driving almost 2 miles in the wrong lane. There were 3 occupants in the SUV. All 8 people died in the accident. This accident was the deadliest on this highway since 1934 when 20 people died in a bus accident near Ossining, New York

According to a recent article published by Only in Your State, most accidents occur in Westchester and Putnam Counties. Speeding is common on this segment of the Taconic. The Taconic is the longest Parkway in New York State. Click on link above to see map of Parkway  and photographs of dangerous portions. A report from 2015 indicates that, for the 7 years before 2015, State Troopers gave 54,000 speeding tickets on the Parkway. 18,000 of them were for drivers speeding in the Westchester area.  The highway is used daily by commuters going to work in the city. The two lanes available in each direction are often overcrowded.

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Trasnportation Alternatives logo9 people including 7 pedestrians and bicyclists died in NYC car crashes in the first 10 days of 2017. In a recent statement, Paul Steely White, the Transportation Alternatives Executive Director, expressed his outrage and asked the city of New York to accelerate street redesigns. He also wants the New York police to change their attitude and be more accountable.

In his statement, Steely White, noted that 7 of the 9 fatal crashes occurred in locations that have been previously identified by Vision Zero as “priority areas”.  Transportation Alternatives asks the city to allocate immediate funding to redesign these high crashes locations.

Steely White also expressed his outrage towards NYPD investigators behavior. The  NYPD has a horrible habit of blaming the victims and exonerating drivers. For example, the driver of the box truck who fatally struck Rafael Nieves last week and left the scene of the accident was let go without his case being referred to the district attorney (see previous blog). The police also didn’t charge the driver who killed 43 year old Marlon Palacios. The driver told the police his leg had become stiff and got stuck on the accelerator.  The police have the power to act as a judge and a jury while a court should make such decision.  Additionally  the police are supposed to deter dangerous driving in New York City but they often blame the victims and let go reckless drivers.

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