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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speed%20cameras.jpgToo many children in New York City died or suffered personal injury because a speeding car hit them on their way to or from their school.

To prevent these types of accidents and as part of the Vision Zero initiative, the NYC Department of Transportation started to install speed-cameras in school zones. 19 cameras have been installed so far in the city.

Last September the speed-cameras indicated that on average 3,539 drivers in a day drove at least 10 mph over the limit. As word spread about the cameras, drivers became more careful and in December he average number of drivers speeding at least 10 mph over the speed limit went down to 1461.

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Death, injury and warranty claims can serve as an early warning of defects or other problems in a car and manufacturers are required by law to submit this information to the government. For the last 11 years, Honda consistently under reported these claims and was fined $70 million for not doing so (see Honda Fined for Violations of Safety Law).Even though this penalty is the highest amount ever fined a car manufacturer by the federal regulators it still seems very modest in comparison to the revenue of the giant car manufacturers. The Obama administration wants to raise the maximum fine to $300 million but would that be enough?

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Co-Op%20City.jpgAfter 12 cases of Legionnaires’s disease were diagnosed in the Bronx, the NYC Department of Health started an investigation to find the source of the disease.

Preliminary tests found Legionella Bacteria in Co-Op City Cooling Towers. The Health Department has instructed River Bay Corporation, the manager of the cooling towers, to decontaminate the towers to mitigate the risk of further contamination.

The health department also stated that only the water used to cool the heating and electrical system is contaminated. This water is self self-contained and is separate from the water used by Co-Op City residents for drinking, cooking and bathing. The water at Co-Op City is safe to drink, bathe and cook with.

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truck%20inspection.jpgRoadside inspections can be effective at reducing the number of large truck accidents. However police officers are often reluctant to do it because they are concerned about the safety of pulling the truck over or because they do not understand the documentation involved.

To solve to this issue the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance have put together a national program to train officers on safely conducting truck and bus stops, properly verifying documentation and being familiar will all violation types.

The program will be launched on February 17th.

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The recent case of Delfino Jesus Velazquez Mendizabal, a Mexican construction worker who died while working at a demolition site in Staten Island, NYC is a tragic example of how dangerous the construction industry has become for Latino workers.

Often undocumented and working for small contractors who are less regulated, Latino workers are exposed to much higher risks and dangers than other construction workers.

In the case of the death of 43 year old Mendizabal, his employer Formica Construction did not have a valid permit to perform the demolition at the site. It is also not the first time that Formica Construction has been negligent and put its construction workers at risk of an accident. Ken Formica, the construction company’s owner was convicted of criminally negligent homicide after one of his employees, 39 year old Lorenzo Pavia was asphyxiated and died as he was working in an unsafe trench that caved in on him.

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A man working in an elevator shaft was crushed to death by an empty elevator that moved down 3 floors at 75th West End Ave on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, NYC. A resident of the building complained that “elevators have been a mess in the building for years”. The building received 12 elevator violations since 2003 and 3 major violations for poor maintenance from last year are still open. The Brodsky Organization which owns and manages the building says it was in the process of modernizing the elevators.

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The FMSCA just announced that Mexican carriers interested in long-haul operation can now submit applications to provide delivery across the border. This announcement marks a new milestone in the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It follows a 3 year pilot program requested by Congress to demonstrate that Mexican carriers can operate safely in the US.
Read more in Trucking Info

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After a child’s injury, both the child and the family may experience traumatic stress reactions that can interfere with the recovery of the child. Pediatric trauma nurses have an important role to play in helping the family and the child to recover physically and emotionally. A recent study led by researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Hershey Medical Center surveyed more than 200 nurses in pediatric trauma centers. The researchers found that 90 % of nurses understand post traumatic stress disorder and recognize the importance of responding to the psychological needs of the child and the family. Additionally, 75% to 80% of the nurses are helping the child and the family to cope with pain and anxiety during procedures and encourage parents to turn to family and friends for support. However most nurses do not provide a direct assessment of the child or the parents distress and do not provide specific instructions on how to cope with the trauma.

Read more about this subject here

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Nonprofit hospitals despicable practices of overcharging patients with no insurance and then using aggressive tactics to collect payments are being discouraged by new rules recently adopted by the Obama Administration. Under the new rules, patients with no insurance who are eligible for financial assistance can not be charged more than “the amounts generally billed” to people who have insurance through a government program or a private carrier. Additionally, hospitals must try to determine whether a patient is eligible for assistance before they start to use aggressive tactics to collect payment.

Read more in the New York Times

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cruise%20medical.jpgIn 2011, the family of 82 year old Pasqualre Vaglio from New York sued a cruise line for medical malpractice after the medical staff on board failed to diagnose a brain injury that would lead to the death of the man a few days later. Medical malpractice lawsuits against cruises have been for a long time impossible to win as cruise lines would use various exemptions created by previous court decisions. One of these exemptions known as “Barbetta” held in 1988 that passengers should not expect the same type of medical care on a ship as on land and ships’ doctors and nurses were private contractors beyond the cruise lines’ direct control. In the recent Vaglio case, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – which has jurisdiction over the major Florida-based cruise lines – recently held Barbetta is outdated law. The judges said that the doctors and nurses on the cruise line were wearing the cruise uniforms and were held out as ship employees in the promotional material of the cruise line. They also opined that cruise lines these days have sophisticated ICUs and laboratories. They can video conference with medical experts if necessary.

Read more in the New York Times