New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog

Published on: April 23, 2014

Mc Guiness Boulevard in Brooklyn where many pedestrians and bicyclists have been injured or have died in auto accidents will be the third 25 MPH Arterial Slow Zone in NYC

Numerous bicyclists and pedestrians have been severely injured and several of them have lost their lives in traffic crashes along Mc Guiness Blvd in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The corridor nicknamed “Hipster Highway” is notorious for passenger vehicles and large trucks speeding. Two years ago a study by Transportation Alternatives showed that two thirds of cars and 62% of large trucks traveled over the 30 mph speed limit with a maximum speed reaching 50 mph for cars and 47 mph for big rigs.

Things should change and residents’ safety should improve by the end of this month as the 1.1 mile stretch of Mc Guiness Blvd between Bayard Street and Freeman Street will become the third arterial slow zone in New York City. New signage will be installed, traffic signals will be coordinated to reduce speeding and the NYPD will increase enforcement on the boulevard.

The creation of 25 arterial slow zones is part of the Zero Vision Action plan to reduce traffic fatalities in the city.

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Published on: April 22, 2014

Starting Thursday, Zero Vison workshops invite New York City residents to discuss traffic safety concerns and help DOT and NYPD in developing plans to reduce the number of people dying or being injured in traffic accidents in their neighborhood

By GGCRBHS&M

To reduce injuries and fatalities related to traffic accidents in all NYC boroughs, the Vision Zero action plan rests on 4 pillars: Law Enforcement, Legislation, Street Design and Public Dialogue.

Involving the communities from the ground up by listening to their specific safety concerns and have the DOT and NYPD work with them to develop traffic safety plans is an important step in having New Yorkers in every borough embracing and promoting the message that traffic deaths are preventable.

7 Vision Zero Town Halls have already been held in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan and a few more are planned in May and June in the same boroughs as well as in Staten Island.

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Published on: April 22, 2014

Americans take more than 4 billion bicycle trips and 41 billion walking trips every year

By GGCRBHS&M

This is part 2 of our series on the Walking and Bicycling Alliance 2014 Benchmarking report. Here are some figures we found interesting about pedestrians and bicyclists’ profiles.

Bicycle trips represent 1% of all trips taken in the US every year and walking trips 10.4%. While pedestrians are of all types of age, genders, income and ethnicity, bicyclists are mostly men and younger..

walk%20and%20bicycle%20trips%20by%20age.png Most people walk or use their bike for a social or recreational reason however more and more people are using their bikes to go to work especially in large cities where the combined average share of commuters by bicycle and foot is significantly higher at nearly 6.1% (1.0% bicycling and 5.0% walking) compared to an average of 3.4% nationally.

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Published on: April 22, 2014

An ambulance took 21 minutes to arrive at a Queens fire that killed two 4 year old children

By GGCRBHS&M

The Fire Department of New York is investigating why it took 21 minutes for an ambulance to get to a fire that broke out in a home in Far Rockaway, Queens last Sunday. The calls arrived in the 911 system at 11:51 am and at 11:56 am the firefighters arrived at the location of the blaze. The firefighters pulled two 4 year old children, Jai’Launi Tinglin and Ayina Tinglin (picture), from the fire and tried to resuscitate them but they were unsuccessful. They were asking: Where is EMS? Where is EMS?

According to the NY Daily News, the ambulance was only dispatched to the fire at 12:05 am, 14 minutes after the 911 call and arrived at the scene at 12:12 am, 21 minutes after the first call to 911.

It is not the first time that glitches happen with New York 911. In June last year, Ariel Russo was struck and killed by a reckless driver on the Upper West Side and glitches with 911 led to a 4 minute delay in the arrival of the ambulance. The Russo family is suing the city for negligence.

Published on: April 21, 2014

In a new attack against Labor Law Section 240 (Scaffold Law), the NY construction industry lobby paid more than $80,000 to the Rockefeller Institute to fund a study that misuses sophisticated statistical techniques and produces inaccurate results

By GGCRBHS&M

New York Labor Law Section 240 or Scaffold Law was enacted more than 100 years ago to protect construction workers from elevated work related accidents. It holds general contractors, owners and others liable if unsafe conditions at the job site lead to a worker’s injury or death (to learn more about NY Labor Law 240 see recent presentation by NY Construction Accident Attorney Anthony Gair)

The construction industry has been trying to repeal and amend this law since it was created and the last attack came with a report entitled “The Costs of Labor Law 240 on New York’s economy and Public Infrastructure” and published by the The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. The report uses questionable statistic methodologies to blame The Scaffold Law for creating more accidents and more injuries.

The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) discovered that the report was actually commissioned by the New York Civil Justice Institute, a front group that was specifically created for this purpose by the Lawsuits Reform Alliance of New York who paid $82,800 for it. The Lawsuits Reform Alliance of New York is well known for lobbying against laws protecting plaintiffs in favor of the construction industry and other corporate interests. The CPD and the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) just published a paper entitled “Fatally Flawed: Why the Rockefeller Institute’s Scaffold Law Report Doesn’t add up”

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Published on: April 20, 2014

More than three dozen open violations discovered by the NYC Department of Buildings after the fatal fall of a worker at 424 West 33rd Street construction site

By GGCRBHS&M

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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Published on: April 19, 2014

The Alliance for Biking and Walking just released its comprehensive 2014 Benchmarking report

By GGCRBHS&M

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.jpg Globally 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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Published on: April 19, 2014

NYC Zero Vision to reduce traffic fatality and personal injury: After Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn last week, the Grand Concourse in the Bronx will be the second Arterial Slow Zone in the city with speed limited to 25mph

By GGCRBHS&M

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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Published on: April 19, 2014

In an effort to prevent pedestrian accidents on the Upper West Side NYPD cops will not issue jaywalking tickets anymore but will teach pedestrians how to respect traffic laws

By GGCRBHS&M

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.

Young female pedestrian dies after being struck by two yellow cabs in Uptown Manhattan

By GGCRBHS&M

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.