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.
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cover of the NYC DOT Fifth Ave protected bike lane proposalBicyclists may soon be better protected from bicycle accidents on Fifth Ave between 23rd Street and 8th Street in Manhattan. Yesterday night the Community Board 2 endorsed a project from the New York Department of Transportation (DOT) to create a protected bike lane on Fifth Avenue between 23rd Street and 8th Street. The Community Board 2 also asked the DOT to extend the protected bike lane until Washington Square.

According to statistics from the DOT, the actual non protected bike lane that runs down Fifth Ave from 23rd Street to 8th Street gets more bike traffic than any other Manhattan avenue. Unfortunately the bike lane is often obstructed by double parked vehicles, forcing bicyclists to get in heavy traffic to ride around it. It is usually in this type of situation that bicyclists are exposed to a high risk of being struck by a car. Between 2010 and 2014, 1 person died and 24 of them suffered severe injury on this specific segment.

The new proposal will not only prevent bicycle accidents but also pedestrian accidents. In addition to switching the bike lane with the parking lane, the DOT also proposed the installation of painted pedestrian islands as well as the installation of  two split-phase signals. Split-phase signals offers a separate crossing phase for cyclists and pedestrians at intersections where motorists are making a left turn. The CB2 also endorsed these two proposals. They additionally asked that the painted pedestrian islands  be cast in concrete. The CB2 members also asked the DOT to consider adding loading and unloading areas to avoid double parking.

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New York Personal Injury Lawyer Rachel JacobsWe are proud to announce that only 3 years after graduating from Law School, our associate, New York personal injury lawyer Rachel Jacobs, is already chairing a Continuous Education Seminar (CLE) at Cardozo Law School on Tuesday March 21st at 6:30 pm. Entitled “Hot Issues in Personal Injury,” this seminar will cover the following subjects:

  • tort trends
  • new tort claims
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SKI_PATROL_ATTENDS_AN_INJURED_SKIER._CROSSED_SKIS_INDICATE_AN_INJURY_-_NARA_-_554256 (1)Many children suffer personal injuries during the winter. Many of these injuries are related to skiing, snow boarding and sledding but doctors at emergency rooms in California also said they are seeing a lot of surf injuries around winter time. Overuse injuries are also common especially when winter is warmer than usual. Growing up athletes continue to practice the same sport they usually practice during summer over fall and winter not allowing sufficient time to rest to their bodies.

Children have a much higher risk of getting injured in skiing and snowboarding activities than adults.  Most injuries occur when children are still learning how to ski or how to snowboard.  When a student skier or snowboarder doesn’t have full control of his or her movement, he or she can sometimes be unable to avoid obstacles. Confirmed skiers usually also know how to fall safely. ER doctors note that male children have a higher risk to suffer severe head and neck injuries. These type of injuries often happen when a youth skis or snowboards too fast for his skill level.

It may seem surprising but on the West Coast surf injuries are also pretty common among youth during the winter. The waves are usually bigger during the winter and emergency room doctors are seeing an increase in head injuries, broken bones as well as ankle and knee sprains.

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Disabled residents at a NYC group home have been physically abused and neglected for years. A lawsuit file against Union Ave. IRA, a group home in the Bronx alleged that disableD residents were physically abused and neglected dozens of time over the last ten years. The lawsuit was filed by the residents’ guardians in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. One of them claimed in the lawsuit that his sister was raped while living at the group home. The guardians are not only suing the staffers from from the group home but also officials from the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities who are supposed to make sure disabled residents are safe. Read more in the NY Daily News

Union Ave Group Home

Picture: courtesy of Google Map

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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 68 year old man died in a motorcycle accident in New York City last Saturday. Franklin Goodman, a motorcycle enthusiast, was riding his bike on Bushwick Avenue in East Williamsburg. The weather was extremely foggy and the visibility very limited. Goodman was on his way to work at Brooklyn Rebar, a construction material company. His shift was starting at 5:00 am.

Around 4:50 am a taxi making a left turn onto Montrose Ave cut through his lane. The motorcyclist slammed on the brakes, skidded on the street and stopped near a delivery truck. He suffered critical injury during the accident. The paramedics took him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Goodman was a beloved lifelong motorcyclist from Bensonhurst. He spent most of his life driving a motorcycle in the city and had no intention to stop. He had the reputation of a very careful driver. His death stunned all his entourage. He leaves behind him a wife and a daughter. Read more in the NY Daily News

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the two young New Yorkers who alerted the residents about a fire in their buildingThree people died and several people were injured in NY fire accidents that erupted mostly in the North West area of the city these past few days.

Yesterday morning 3 people were injured in a fire that started in a third floor apartment of a 5-story building located on West 184th Street near Amsterdam Ave in Washington Heights. One of the victims was critically injured while the two others only suffered minor injuries. Read more in the NY Daily News.

Also yesterday in Mount Vernon, NY a mother and her child died in a fire accident. The fire broke out at the second floor of a residence located on 13th street. 11 people lived in the house. A 30 year old mother and her 17th month baby both died in the fire. Another person was injured and transported to the hospital. The causes of the fire accident are not clear yet. Read more and see pictures on PIX11 

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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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accident sceneA tractor-trailer truck hit a pick up truck killing  3 of the occupants and injuring 5 other people Tuesday early morning. 51 year old Henry Walker, his 21 year old son Khalil and 3 other workers were driving from Pennsylvannia on their way to a construction job in the Hamptons.  As they were driving on the Cross Bronx Expressway near Webster Ave,  a tractor-trailer truck stopped abruptly in front of them.  Henry Walker who was driving was able to stop just behind the truck. Unfortunately another tractor-trailer just behind them wasn’t able to stop on time. He slammed into the pick up truck killing the dad, the son and one of the workers. 5 other people were injured in the crash.

Henry was a contractor from Tonyhanna, PA and his son was a communication student at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. He was working with his dad to make extra money to study in Japan.  They left behind their devastated  mother Sandy Walker. The family had just lost a daughter to diabetes last April.

Read more in the NY Daily News 

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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.