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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After a worker fell to his death at a NYC midtown construction site, the city issued a full stop work order at the site.

The Department of Buildings issued 41 violations including 6 for work without a permit. Other violations included failure to safeguard persons or property; failure to report an accident; no record of daily inspection of suspended scaffold; work doesn’t conform to approved plans; failure to provide approved plans; failure to provide guardrails; and failure to provide protection.

When the accident happened, the worker, 34 year old Lukasz Stolarski of Brooklyn, was doing facade restoration work. He wasn’t wearing a harness and fell from a ledge he was standing on between the roof and the penthouse. He landed on the top of the sidewalk shed at the 424 West 33rd Street construction site resulting in his death.

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The BICYCLING AND WALKING IN THE UNITED STATES 2014 BENCHMARKING REPORT just came out. This report provides one of the most comprehensive reviews on bicycling and walking all over the US. It is compiled by the Alliance for Biking & Walking which is the North American coalition of over 220 state and local bicycling and walking advocacy organizations.

The Benchmarking report focuses on the 50 States and the 50 most populous American cities. Additionally and for the first time, 17 small and midsize cities were also added to the 2014 report to provide a more complete picture of biking and walking activities in the country.

Biking%20and%20walking%20study%20area.jpgGlobally the report shows a slow but steady increase of people using their bikes or their feet to go to work. The report also demonstrates that the level of pedestrian and bicycle accidents is inversely proportional to the number of bikers and walkers and that advocacy groups are playing an important role encouraging people to do so.

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12 people including 7 pedestrians died in auto accidents and many others were injured in speed related crashes along the Bronx Grand Concourse in New York City between 2008 and 2012. Speeding is the main cause of accidents in this dangerous area but this is about to change extremely soon as as officials announced that the the 5.2 miles Bronx corridor will be the second of 25 planned NYC arterial slow zones. The first one was introduced last week on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn.

Starting this month, traffic signals will be synchronized to reduce dangerous speeding, new 25 mph signage will be installed and the NYPD will increase enforcement in this dangerous area of the Bronx.

The arterial slow zone program is one of the 63 measures included in New York Zero Vision Program launched by Mayor de Blasio at the beginning of the year. Throughout the city, arterial roads amount for 15% of the mileage but for 60% of pedestrian fatal accidents.

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After several pedestrians died in traffic accidents on the Upper West Side in NYC, the cops have been cracking down on jaywalkers in sensitive areas such as W. 96th street and Broadway (picture). Earlier this year cops in the neighborhood were instructed to give tickets that could go up to $150 to pedestrians caught jaywalking. The cops went after the pedestrians in such an aggressive way that they ended up knocking down and roughing up an 84 year old man who tried to walk away when the cops were issuing him a ticket. The old man hired a personal injury lawyer who is now suing the city for $5 million.

Last week NYPD Commissioner Bratton told cops to use discretion with the elderly and handicapped and Marion Larin the Captain of the UWS 24th precinct replaced the ticket blitz by an information blitz campaign during which officers will teach jaywalkers to follow the law in order to protect themselves from dangerous traffic accidents.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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Another pedestrian fatality happened last weekend in New York. A 22 year old woman who was crossing York Ave on the Upper East Side of New York was struck by cab that threw her in the opposite traffic lane where a second cab struck her. She was rushed to the hospital where she died. Read more in the New York Daily News

According to NYC Crash mapper over the last 31 months there were 21 collisions at the location of the accident (EAST 84 STREET and YORK AVENUE). As a results of these collisions 3 pedestrians, 1 bicyclist and 1 motorist suffered personal injury. According to locals, the visibility is limited for pedestrians and drivers as York Ave crests at 84th street and declines to 85th street.

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A 32 year old man was critically injured in a bizarre car accident in Brooklyn, NYC, last night. The man was driving in the wrong direction on the road and while he attempted to make a left turn his car overturned.

Read more in the New York Daily News

PHOTO:DANNY IUDICI/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

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Hospital-associated infection can be medical malpractice. 5% of hospital inpatients develop an infection during their stay. As a result patients who develop an infection usually have to extend their stay in the hospital. Hospital acquired infection if not diagnosed and treated properly can also lead to the death of the patient. .

Blood transfusion is a very common hospital procedure during which the patient has a risk of developing an infection.

Hospitals have different strategies as to when a blood transfusion is required. Some have a liberal strategy which means that they will administer red blood cells to a patient when the patient’s hemoglobin level falls below 10 g/dL and some have a more restrictive strategy and will give a blood transfusion to the patient once the level of hemoglobin is below 8 or 7 g/dL.

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tire%20pressure%20warning%20icon.jpgTo prevent vehicle accidents related to inadequate tire pressure, since 2008 all vehicles in the US are equipped with a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS). If the icon on the left is appearing on a car dash board it means that the pressure in the tires has reached a dangerous level and action is required by the driver. Unfortunately according to a recent consumer study 42% of drivers don’t know what this icon means, additionally 10% of drivers ignore the warning and continue to drive.

 

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Our partner, New York Construction Accident Attorney Anthony Gair was recently invited by the New York State Bar Association to speak about New York Labor Law Section 240 also commonly known as the scaffolding law. Here is his presentation.
To learn more about Construction Accident Law in New York visit our website

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To reduce personal injury and deaths related to tractor-trailer truck accidents the National Transportation Safety Board sent a letter last week to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urging the agency to take the following actions:

Address Blind Spots

Blind spots are a major cause of accidents between large trucks and other motor vehicles as well as more vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians. The rate of fatal accidents is particularly high among vulnerable road users. Research from the NTSB show that 16% of pedestrians and bicyclists involved in a truck accident will die. This ratio is of 12% for motorcyclists, 1% for passenger vehicle occupants and 0,2% for the tractor-trailer occupants.
Blind spots for large trucks are much bigger than blind spots for regular cars and exist in the front, in the back and on both sides of the truck. According to the study “Prioritizing Improvements to Truck Driver Vision” by Matthew P. Reed, Daniel Blower and Michael J. Flannagan from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute , the blind spot on the right of the cab of the truck is the most dangerous. During a lane change, most collisions with another motor vehicle happen in this spot. It is also the spot where most pedestrians and bicyclists are struck during start-up and right turn crashes.
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Countermeasures to mitigate blind spots include enhanced mirror systems as well as more advanced technologies such as sensors to detect vehicles and vulnerable road users in blind spots.
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