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.

Articles Tagged with car accident nyc

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location of the fatal car accidentTwo women car pooling to work were killed after their car was T-boned by a speeding driver who blew a red light in East New York. The fatal car accident took place at the intersection of Flatlands Ave and Pennsylvania Av.

Sandra Liberice and Nerlye Sainvil were car pooling together to work. Both women were healthcare workers taking care of mentally disabled children at a group home run by the nonprofit organization “Services for the Undeserved. They had a night shift.  Sainvil had picked up Liberice and they were carpooling together to work. They were less than a mile away from their destination when the accident occurred. Video surveillance showed that the two women were travelling East on Flatland Ave. After the light turned green at the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave, Sainvil started to slowly drive through the intersection when all of sudden a speeding BMW T-boned them at full speed. The two occupants of the BMW were able to extricate themselves from their car and fled the scene of the accident on foot leaving the two women dying behind them.  They both died at the scene of the accident.

Both women were essential workers and had been going to work during the covid-19 lockdown. They both immigrated from Haiti. Nerlye  Sainvil immigrated to the US in 2001, She had a Law degree from Haiti and initially studied to work as a paralegal. She was hired as a direct care worker at the group home and decided to stay there.  Sainvil was 58 year old. She was a church goer and she as suppsoed to get married to her fiancé this year but the wedding was postponed because of the covid-19 crisis. Her fiancé and her 8 siblings were in shock. She was suppsoed to go to visit he sister in Pennsylvania during the holidays.

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location of the deadly pedestrian accidentA pedestrian was killed by a reckless driver in Brooklyn last week. The 53 year old woman was crossing the street in the crosswalk at the intersection of Glenwood Road and 55th Street when she was struck by a car driven by 22 year old Michael Rajpaul.

Rajpaul was chased by another driver who he previously hit

Previous to hitting the pedestrian with his 2008 Hyundai, Rajpaul had a fender bender with a BMW. Instead of staying at the scene of the accident he sped away and the driver of the BMW chased him. As he drove South on 55th in the wrong way and at high speed, he ran a red light and was t-boned by another car driving through the greenlight. His car spun around and he hit a 53 year old pedestrian wo got thrown into a parked car. She was rushed to the hospital but the impact was so intense that she died from her injuries.  None of the drivers were injured.

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location of the crashA mother of six children suffered life threatening injuries in a car accident in New York City early Tuesday morning. The accident occurred a little bit after midnight. The 32 year old victim identified as Malka Braver was riding in the back of a Honda Accord driven by a Lyft driver. As their car was crossing the intersection of Dekalb Avenue and Bedford Avenue (see Google map picture on the left) with the light in their favor, a reckless driver speeding down Dekalb Avenue in a Dodge Charger blew the red light and T-boned the back of the Lyft car. The impact was so intense that the victim got ejected from the Honda which spun around, crashed into another parked vehicle and jumped the curb to finally stop right in front a the entrance of a deli. The victim was rushed to the hospital where she is still fighting for her life. The Lyft driver and the Charger driver both suffered minor injuries and were also transported to the hospital according to the police. The driver of the Dodge Charger was identified as 22 year old Ryan Ortiz from Middletown, NY.  The car driven by Ortiz was a souped-up dodge charger with vanity plates “SCR3AM” and a wrap-around design from the horror movie Scream. Videos of the car performing donuts in the Kings Plaza Shopping Center parking lot a few hours before the accident were found on social media. Ortiz was not arrested and the investigation is ongoing. Read more in the Gothamist  .

One day earlier another young driver killed his passenger and almost killed himself in reckless Queens crash

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After reaching a record high in September, NYC auto accident fatalities remained high with 12 pedestrians, 1 cyclist, 4 passengers and 7 drivers killed in auto accidents in October compared to respectively 13 pedestrians, 6 bicyclists, 2 passengers and 14 drivers last September and 9 pedestrians, 3 cyclists, 1 passengers and 5 drivers in October 2019 (click on graphs for full format)

After remaining below 20 for the last 4 years, motor vehicle accident fatalities for the month of October  are back to pre Vision Zero levels with a total of 24 people killed on NYC streets.

Auto accident deaths NYC October 2020
While the number of traffic deaths was higher, the number of people injured in car accidents in New York City was at the lowest level for for the 8 years under review in the graph below. A total of 4,235 people sustained injuries in traffic accidents in the city compared to respectively 5,204, 5,498, 5,450, 5,083, 4,851, 4,692 and 4,830 in October 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

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Facebook pic of the victimA man speeding and under the influence of alcohol or drugs crashed into the car of a hospital worker on his way to work and killed him.

Daniel Crawford, a phlebotomist at Queens Hospital Center was on his way to work last Friday morning around 4:00 am. He was driving his Toyota through the green light at the intersection of  Parsons Boulevard and Union Turnpike in Jamaica, Queens, when he was T-boned by a Mercedes Benz driven by 22 year old Alamin Ahmed.  Crawford was rushed to the hospital where he usually goes to work but he could not be saved.

A dad, a frontline worker and a future nurse

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location of the bike collision
A New York cyclist who was struck by a car died from his injuries one week after the accident occurred. On Saturday November 7th around 1:00 am , Juan Tiu-Caxaj was riding his bicycle on Autumn Avenue. As he crossed Fulton Street he collided with a car heading westbound on Fulton Street. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident. He was not charged. The young victim suffered head trauma and was transported to the hospital. His condition was stable but  it deteriorated and he died from his injuries a week later.

According to the police, the cyclist rode through a stop sign just before the collision.  The investigation is still ongoing to find out the exact cause of the accident.

According to Vision Zero studies, East New York is among the most dangerous areas in New York for bicyclists. However so far not much has been done in this neighborhood to promote bicyclists safety compared to other areas of New York City like Manhattan.

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A moped rider and 2 pedestrians were struck by cars in New York City in less than 24h.

In the first accident a driver hit a 94 year old man in a motorized wheelchair. The accident occurred yesterday afternoon on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The elderly man was crossing 5th Ave at the intersection of 95th street. He was in the crosswalk when a 32 year old driver struck him. The victim was critically injured and was rushed to the hospital. He is now in stable condition according to the NY Daily News.   The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged as police indicated that it was not clear who had the right of way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6In0OUvQm8

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A pedestrian and a motorist died in two separate car accidents in Queens, NYC, last night.

A woman speeding in her car killed herself after she lost control of her vehicle and crashed into a building, setting the car on fire. The accident occurred last night around 11:50 pm in Queens, NYC. 58 year old Berverlee Jackson was speeding on 11th Street in Hunter Point when she suddenly jumped the curb and crashed into a building. The impact was so intense that Beverlee was ejected from her Honda CRV SUV and then pinned under it while the vehicle spun around and ultimately caught fire. Firefighters and EMS rushed to the rescue but it was too late. Beverlee Jackson was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. The woman lived in Flatbush, 8 miles away from the location of the accident.  Read more in the NY Daily News

A few hours later, also in Queens, another victim died in a SUV accident. The victim is a 72 year old location-of-the-second-deadly-accidentpedestrian who was struck by a car while crossing the road. His identity was not reveled by the police. The man was crossing at the intersection of the Horace Hardin Expressway, a service road  near the Long Island Expressway, and Main Street around 4:45 am.  He was in the crosswalk when a Toyota Sienna plowed into him. The pedestrian was rushed to the hospital but he could not be saved. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and was not charged. Read more in the NY Daily News

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accident scene175 people died in auto accidents in New York City between January 1st and October 4th 2020 according to a recent article in the New York Post. Last year 169 people died during the same period of time. These numbers might seem pretty similar however the situation  in 2020 was vey different from 2019. For 3 months New Yorkers were required to quarantine and stay home in 2020.  As a result a decline in fatalities should have been expected but instead fatalities increased. The empty roads became much more dangerous than usual with road users engaging in risky behavior such as speeding.  Yesterday we blogged about the surge in bicycle accidents in the city but bicyclists are not the only category of roads users that experienced a surge in fatalities. 38 motorcyclists died so far compared to 37 for the same period of 2019 and 50 car occupants died in NYC crashes so far compared to 22 for the same period of 2019. This is more than the double. Many of the car occupant’s fatalities are related to speeding but as traffic in the city is returning back to normal, now another problem has appeared: a rise in cyclist deaths.  Sadly this doesn’t come as a surprise. Street safety activists and the media have been pointing at both issues, speeding and a rise in cyclists, for months.

Mayor de Blasio self destroyed his Vision Zero legacy

Mayor de Blasio who successfully launched Vision Zero at the beginning of 2014, not only ignored recommendations of his Surface Transportation Advisory Council to address the new challenges created by the covid-19 crisis but additionally slashed the Vision Zero budget (see previous article in New York Post).

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A 32 year-old woman died in a car accident in New York on Saturday. Jolenna Favor who lives in Far Rockaway was a passenger in a BMW driven by 35 year old Nicholas Thompson. Thompson was not supposed to be on the road driving the car as his license was previously revoked in 2011 following several drunk driving arrests. He was arrested a first time in Queens in 2008, then in Nassau County in 2011 when his license was taken away from him. He was caught drunk driving again in 2015 despite his license being revoked.

On Saturday a little bit before 7 pm, Thompson was drunk driving again. He was speeding down Rockaway Boulevard near Nassau County Boulevard with his friend Jolenna Favor in the passenger seat. At one point, just before the accident, an unmarked NYPD car had to swerve to avoid him then he lost control of his car and crashed into a fence in the middle of the trees.

When EMS arrived they found Jolenna dead in the passenger seat. She died from severe head and body trauma. Thompson survived. The two undercover cops that he almost hit saw him getting out of his car and alleged that his breath smelled of alcohol and that his eyes were bloodshot and watery. He refused a blood test but admitted that he was drunk driving.