On June 25th the New York State Senate passed a bill that granted Bill deBlasio the authority to reduce the maximum speed limit from 30 mph to 25mph in all 5 boroughs of New York City (see previous blog). Now the Department of Transportation is conducting a street by street analysis to determine which streets will have their sped limit lowered from 30 mph to 25 mph. According to the DOT, most of the major avenues will see a speed reduction.
Read more in the New York Daily News
Speeding and failure to yield to pedestrians are the leading causes of traffic fatalities and personal injuries to pedestrians in New York City. Therefore as part of the Vision Zero Initiative all NYPD precincts have been instructed at the beginning of this year to increase enforcement of the most dangerous traffic violations.
A new report card from Transportation Alternatives published last week looks at six months of Vision Zero Traffic Enforcement in New York City. Globally across the city, speeding tickets increased by 32% and tickets for failure to yield increased by 153% for the first 6 months of 2014 compared to the first 6 months of 2013. However while looking at the numbers precinct by precinct, Transportation Alternative discovered huge discrepancies. The most troubling was to find neighborhood precincts with similar traffic conditions and street design that had very different enforcement efforts. For example In Harlem,the 26th Precinct nearly doubled the number of speeding summonses issued from last year(294 to 533),
while the adjacent 30th Precinctin Washington Heights issued half as many summonses as they did the prior year.
A 79 year old woman was killed in a traffic accident in Queens on Friday morning. The woman was crossing 99th street when she was hit by a van which was making a left-hand turn from 62nd road. The driver stayed at the scene (see video below).
One day before another elderly pedestrian was killed by a vehicle in Queens (see previous post) and a 77 year old woman suffered critical personal injury after being struck by a Jeep Wrangler at the Lily Pond Avenue and Narrows Road South in Arrochar, Staten Island, NYC (read more in the SILive)
Last week, the AARP published the results of a voter survey that indicates that 40% of of voters above 50 years old consider drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians a serious problem and 25% of them also say that traffic signals are too quick and don’t allow enough time to cross the road. (read more in New York City Street Blog)
A man who was driving at 107 mph in a 50 mph zone lost the control of his vehicle and killed himself and his passenger in a frightening car accident, Friday night, a little after midnight in Queens, NYC. The 30 year old driver who was speeding West on the Long Island Expressway lost control of his car as he was trying to switch lanes near Flushing Meadows Park. The car struck a guardrail, flipped over over it and ended it course against a pillar. Both the driver and his passenger, another man in his 30’s died shortly after they arrived to the hospital.
Read more in the NY Daily News
GGCSMB&R is proud to announce that our Managing Partner New York Personal Injury Attorney Ben Rubinowitz was the 2013 recipient of the Robert Keeton Award for Outstanding Service as a National Institute for Trial Advocay (NITA) Faculty Member. This award recognizes Ben’s exceptional work as a NITA faculty member. Here is what NITA has to say about Ben: “In considering his nomination, it was recognized that “Ben is a ‘best’ teacher and deserves the best teacher award.” He began teaching early in his career, and has contributed to new and evolving methods, such as “drills” and the drill room. He lectures in the same persona that he presents to a jury-a consummate role model.”
The National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) is the nation’s leading provider of legal advocacy skills training. It is a deidcated team of professors, judges and practicing lawyers who believe that skilled and ethical advocacy is a critical component of legal professionalism and all systems of dispute resolution that seek justice
Below is a video demonstrating Ben’s skills as a NITA teacher
In order to better prevent truck accidents and save lives, a new provision that took effect a year ago was added to the Hours of Service rule for truck drivers. The provision limits the maximum average work week for truck drivers to 70 hours instead of 82 hours. The provision also allows truck drivers who reach the maximum 70 hours of driving within a week to resume if they rest for 34 consecutive hours, including at least two nights when their body clock demands sleep the most – from 1-5 a.m and require truck drivers to take a 30-minute break during the first eight hours of a shift.
This week at the Senate Hearing on Truck Safety, the 34-hour restart provision was at the center of the discussions. Some senators waned to suspend the provision while the FMCSA studies its impact on safety arguing mostly that too many trucks are hitting the road at dawn. Anne Ferro, chief of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, defended the restart. She said that the provision helps in saving 400 lives a year and doesn’t affect truck companies. She also said that the agency estimates the provision is putting about 250,000 more trucks on the road, “a drop in the bucket compared to the 10 million” already on the road.
Read more in Heavy Duty Trucking website
11 firefighters and 2 residents suffered personal injury in a 4-alarm fire that burned two houses on Hill Avenue in the Bronx, NYC yesterday afternoon. The fire started at 4519 Hill Ave and spread to 4515 and 4523 Hill Ave. One of the firefighters was seriously inured, 8 of them were taken to the hospital for minor wounds treatment and 2 others were treated on site. Two residents also suffered personal injury. One of them was injured after he jumped from a second floor window to escape the flames.
A skydiving student died and his instructor suffered critical personal injury in a skydiving accident in Calverton, Long Island, NY, yesterday. According to officials, the student, Garry Messina, a NYC correction officer who was celebrating his 25 year old birthday, died on impact after a parachute failure during a tandem jump.
In a statement, Rich Winstock, the director of the United States Parachute Association (USPA), said that the accident was under investigation with the Federal Aviation Administration and that wind may have been a factor.
According to statistics from the USPA, in 2013, there were 24 skydiving fatalities out of 3.2 million jumps, that’s a 0.0075 fatalities per 1000 jumps. For tandem skydiving the fatality rate is 0.003 student fatalities per 1000 tandem jumps. The rate of personal injury is approximately 3 per 10,000 skydives.
How in the middle of the day, did a driver fail to see an 80-year-old crossing the street in front of her on a one way residential street?
In a recent article in StreetBlog, Brad Aaron is questioning why the police didn’t charge the driver who crashed into 80 year old Margherita Nanfro as she was crossing Rutherford Place at Bay 16th Street in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, NYC, around noon on July 25th. Pictures from the accident suggest that the driver may have been speeding as the impact was strong enough to throw the elderly woman onto the windshield. Reports also suggest that the victim had the right of way.
An 87 year old woman who was trying to cross the street was hit by a car near Willets Point Blvd and 163rd St in Flushing, Queens, New York, yesterday night. She suffered severe head injuries and later died in the hospital.
In New York City, senior pedestrians have a higher risk to die in a car accident than adult pedestrians. Recent statistics from the DOT show that seniors represent 12% of the NYC population but account for 36% of NYC pedestrian traffic fatalities.
Source: DOT Safe Street for Seniors New York City
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog