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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 Bicycle Accidents

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11 pedestrians, 3 cyclists, 4 passengers and 8 motor vehicle operators died in crashes in New York City last May compared to respectively 6,2,0 and 2 in April and 15, 1, 3 and 11 in May 2021. This is the first time that the number of monthly fatalities is above 25 since October 21.

After a drop during the Covid19 crisis in 2020, monthly traffic accident fatalities have been above 25, 8 times during the last 2 years, Before the Covid19 crisis, since Vision Zero started in 2014, fatalities only went above 25 5 times over a period of 6 years. These numbers are very preoccupying.  At the very beginning of May, The Adams administration launched a $4 million campaign urging  motorists to slow down but so far this campaign doesn’t seem to have much effects on car accident fatalities.

New York motor vehicle accident fatalities May 2022
Car accident deaths have been exploding over the last two years in New York City. Last May, as mentioned above, 26 people died in traffic accidents compared to 10 a month earlier and 30 in May 2021. Since May 2015 when they reached 28, monthly car accidents deaths had remained below 20 during the months of April and May. While the trendline since Vison Zero started remains on the decline, the last 2 years have been more deadly than before.

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a solution to keep cyclists safge during the greenway repairsTo prevent potential bicycle accidents, the Parks Department has delayed the much needed repair of the upper section of the Hudson Greenway until a safe detour can be figured out. The repairs that were supposed to start last Monday would have closed the Greenway for the next 4 months between West 181st Street and Dyckman Street and cyclists would have been redirected onto Broadway via 181st Street and Dyckman Street. This plan was extremely dangerous for cyclists and after multiple calls from local cyclists and street advocates the Parks Department has now postponed the repairs until a safe detour is found.

Several options are being explored to offer a safe detour to cyclists

One of them, a proposal by Community Board 12  endorsed by former Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz, suggests to take one line out of the 3 lines on the Hudson River Parkway north of the George Washington Bridge and to transform it into a temporary bike path separated from the highway with Jersey barriers. This solution would be much safer for cyclists and would not affect the car traffic much as the part of the Hudson River Highway north of the George Washington Bridge is usually extremely fluid.

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Ghost bike showing locations of previous NYC deadly bicycle accidentsWhen a cyclist is hit by a car, the injuries can be devastating and sometimes deadly. Some injured cyclists will recover others will required medical treatments for a lifetime. On the top of expensive medical bills,  injured bicyclists might also suffer emotional consequences and life changes that can have significant financial consequences. Depending on the case, the cyclist and his/her family might be able to obtain compensation for their damages and should consult with an experienced bicycle accident attorney.

What does recovering from a bicycle accident look like?

In a recent article, the New York  Post describes how David Jevotovsky,  a medical student who was riding a bike, suffered traumatic brain injury and almost died after being hit by a car in New York City in 2017. After the accident, he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with what is called an epidural hematoma which is a bleeding between the skull and the brain. This type of injury can sometimes be deadly or if the victim survives, it can have lifetime consequences.

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29 pedestrians, 17 passengers and 12 motor vehicle operators died in crashes in New York City during the first 3 months of the year for a total of 58 fatalities. There were no cyclist fatalities. Since Vision Zero started in 2014, the highest number of auto accident deaths reached 51 in 2014. The only positive news during the first quarter was that no cyclist deaths were reported during this period which never occurred before.

car accident fatalities NYC Q1 2022
NYC Car accident injuries were higher during Q1 22 than during the same period of 2010 and almost reached the same level than in 2020. Among the injured were 4,632 drivers, 3,120 passengers, 649 bicyclists and 2,100 pedestrians. Compared to the same period a year before, all categories of road users sustained a higher number of injuries with the exceptions of the cyclists which might indicate that all the new measures to make cycling safer in  the city have a positive impact.

auto accident injuries New York City Q1 22
12 motor vehicle operators died in crashes during Q1 compared to respectively, 10, 10, 9, 13, 8, 13, 8, 15 and 15 during the same period 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013. While the trend line of motorist deaths is still declining, the numbers of this last quarter are significantly above this trend line.

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10 pedestrians, 8 passengers and 6 drivers died in crashes in New York City in February. No cyclists fatalities were reported to the NYPD during this month. 266 bus accidents, 577 truck accidents and 56 motorcycle accidents were reported among the total 7,261 motor vehicle collisions recorded in February.

Traffic accident fatalities in New York City reached a record high for the month of February with 24 people dying in traffic accidents compared to respectively 10, 17, 12, 16, 13, 18, 15, 12 and 20 in February 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.  Traffic accident fatalities in the city last February were even higher than what they were in February 2013 before Vision Zero started.  The  trendline which had been steadily declining during Vision Zero is now almost flat. Since last February ,monthly car accident fatalities have been at the level of the trendline or above which is quite unusual and quite worrisome.

Car accident fatalities February 22
The high number of car accident fatalities in New York City last February is mostly due to a record high number of car passengers fatalities (see category in red in the graph below, click on it for full size). 8 motor vehicle passengers died in crashes last February compared to 5 in January 2020 and 2 in February 2021. Since Vision Zero started and even a year before, the highest total monthly passengers fatalities were 6 in April 2014 and 6 in July 2015.

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Grand Street bike lane67 people were injured in bicycle accidents on the Grand Street bike lane in Brooklyn since it was implemented in 2019. The bike lane is only protected by plastic bollards and as a results is constantly obstructed by vehicles  illegally parking on it.   The Grand Street bike  lane is one of the busiest bike lanes in Brooklyn and is used on a daily basis by numerous cyclists commuting between Bushwick and downtown Manhattan though the Williamsburg bridge.

Before being elected, Eric Adams promised he would add 300 miles of protected bike lanes in all five boroughs

After his election, the mayor also promised he would reinforce 20 miles of bollard protected bike lanes in the first 100 days of his tenure.  This promise no longer applies and the DOT has now announced that this task would be finished by 2023.

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657 pedestrians, 161 cyclists, 870 passengers and 1,429 motorists were injured in motor vehicle accidents in New York City last January. 19 other road users died in crashes the same month, including 11 pedestrians, 5 passengers and 3 motorists. This is the highest number of fatalities for a month of January since January 2019 and the highest it ever got during a month and more than half of them were motorists. Last year during the same month, 13 people were killed in traffic accidents in the city.

auto accident fatalities NYC January 22
auto accident deaths by category of road users New York January 22
The total number of  people injured in motor vehicle accidents in January 2022 in the city was a little higher than in January 2021 when it reached 3,028 however this number remained lower than numbers recorded during the months of January before the pandemic.  The graph below illustrates well the seasonality of car accident injuries with the month of January being usually a month during which there are less injuries reported than during the summer months. The graph also shows a big drop during the lockdown.

Motorists and passengers are the two categories of road users that usually sustained the most injuries of all auto accidents reported in the city.

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road defect killed cyclistA senior cyclist died in a accident caused by a road defect in Queens, NYC, last Thursday. 77 year old Lin Wen-Chiang was riding his bicycle on 40th Driver in Elmhurst when he hit a broken cave-in pavement  and fell off his bike. He suffered severe head trauma and died from his injuries.

6 complaints were previously logged in with the Department of Transportation as the cave-in pavement was never properly addressed

After the accident occurred, city workers were seen patching the defect which had been poorly addressed despite multiple complaints to the city.

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college point boulevard where the cyclist was struckOn June 4 2021, 16 year old Darwin Durazno died in a bicycle accident in Queens, NYC. The driver never stopped and Darwin was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. He died from his injuries 3 days later.  According to the police report, Darwin was riding his bicycle southbound on College Point Boulevard near 18th Avenue  when the driver of a Toyota Camry swerved into the ongoing traffic lane and crashed head-on into the bicyclist.  He then sped off leaving Darwin lying in the street with severe head trauma.

Witnesses of the accident were able to provide a detailed description of the car and of the driver, a male in his 20-30 as well as what the driver was wearing. The police found that the car was a rental from Enterprise that the driver left a block away from the accident scene before fleeing on foot.

It took 8 more months for the police to establish that the driver who killed Darwin was 27 year old Christian Soriano, a Corona resident. Soriano was arrested last week and was charged with driving without a license, leaving the scene of an accident and criminally negligent homicide.  (Read more in StreetBlog)

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According to the most recent NYPD collision statistics, a total of 254 people died in motor vehicle accidents in New York City last year. Among them were 108 pedestrians, 15 cyclists, 33 vehicle passengers and 98 motor vehicle drivers.  Before Vision Zero started in  2014, 286 people died in auto accidents in 2013. Then the number of deaths went down to 250 in 2014, 235 in 2015, 223 in 2016. It reached its lowest in 2018 with 199 traffic accident fatalities and then gradually increased to 214 deaths in 2019 and 239 in 2020.

While pedestrians remain the category of road users recording the highest number of deaths of all road users with 108 of them dying last year, the numbers that caused the total traffic fatalities in New York City to be so high last year were the record number of motorists and passengers fatalities. 98 motorists died and 33 passengers were killed in car accidents last year compared to 84 and 23 in 2013 before Vision Zero started. Distracted driving, speeding and recklessness are the causes of most of these fatalities.

car accident fatalities NYC 2021
Traffic accidents injuries remain lower than usual but however a little bit higher than last year with a total of 50,617 people injured in car accidents in 2021 compared to respectively 43,601, 60,234, 60,646, 58,990, 58,526, 51,255, 50,886 and 54,818 in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013. A diminution of the day to day activity in the city because of the ongoing Covid19 crisis may be a factor behind these lower than usual numbers.

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