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Picture this: you’re driving in New York or in Westchester County, doing your best to operate your vehicle responsibly. In between intersections, a pedestrian steps into the road, not even glancing around, their eyes firmly on their phone.

It happens more than you think, so if you haven’t encountered this yet, you likely will at some point.

People call them “smartphone zombies” (and some more creative names that I can’t print here), but what they really are are distracted pedestrians. These distracted pedestrians are becoming as common (and as dangerous) as distracted drivers. Across New York and the country, walking while texting, scrolling, or streaming has become a leading cause of preventable accidents. And while mobile devices are the most common culprits, pedestrians can also be distracted by listening to music, talking to others, or just about anything else that keeps their focus away from the traffic.

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Bedsores can be painful, and in some cases, life-threatening. Understandably, families often assume that the presence of a bedsore automatically means their loved one has been neglected or abused. The truth is more nuanced than that, but if a loved one has developed bedsores, it is worthwhile asking whether neglect is a factor.

At The Law Office of Mark A. Siesel, we have handled countless personal injury matters over nearly 40 years of practice, including nursing home neglect cases involving bedsores. Our firm takes a relationship-based approach: we truly get to know our clients and stay in touch. We also pride ourselves on responsiveness, returning phone calls and emails within 24 business hours, and often the same day. This level of responsiveness is especially important in cases involving bedsores, because every day matters in keeping your loved one safe.

What Are Bedsores?

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Driving comes with serious risks, especially for younger, less experienced drivers. While teens may look forward to the freedom, they may underestimate the potential dangers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), motor vehicle accidents remain among the leading causes of death for U.S. teenagers.

At The Law Office of Mark A. Siesel, we’ve represented countless families whose lives were changed when their teens were in a traffic collision. With almost 40 years of experience handling motor vehicle accident and personal injury cases across New York, attorney Mark A. Siesel understands how to help when your family member has been injured. If your teen has been injured, reach out to our law firm for a free consultation.

Why Teen Drivers Are at Higher Risk

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After a car accident, it can be tempting to skip a trip to the doctor if you don’t feel immediate pain. After all, you may feel fine and may be more worried about damage to your car or the insurance process. Spending hours in a waiting room to see a doctor can seem like more than you can handle. However, seeking prompt medical attention after a crash is one of the most important steps you can take. It protects your health and can save your life. It also protects your potential personal injury claim.

At The Law Office of Mark A. Siesel, we’ve represented car accident victims throughout Westchester and surrounding counties. We’ve seen how early medical evaluation can make a critical difference in both physical recovery and the outcome of an injury case. If you have been injured by someone’s negligence, contact us for a free consultation. You can even call us from the waiting room or from your hospital room and we will answer within 24 business hours—and often much sooner. If you are worried about your medical costs, we can explore ways we can seek compensation to cover those, and other expenses related to your car accident.

Why Immediate Medical Care Matters After a Crash

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Tesla is under renewed federal scrutiny following reports that some vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system may run red lights, veer into oncoming lanes, or even stall on railroad tracks. While this probe is unfolding, it raises urgent questions for drivers, potential victims, and anyone who may be harmed by such system failures.

At The Law Office of Mark A. Siesel, we follow developments like these closely because they can affect real people’s lives. With almost 40 years’ experience handling serious personal injury, motor vehicle, and wrongful‐death claims, we help people understand the legal options when technology fails. If you have been injured in a Tesla collision or any car crash, you can always schedule a free consultation with our team to review what your options might be.

What’s Behind the Federal Investigation?

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For the first nine months of 2025, New York City reported one of its safest years on record for roadway fatalities. According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), traffic deaths dropped nearly 18% compared to the same period in 2024. Officials credit Vision Zero initiatives, street redesigns, and targeted enforcement for the improvements.

While this trend is encouraging, it does not change the reality for families across Westchester, the Bronx, and counties that include Kings, Orange, Rockland, New York, Queens, Putnam, Dutchess, Ulster, and Sullivan counties, who continue to face life-altering injuries and losses due to negligent driving. At The Law Office of Mark A. Siesel, we recognize the progress New York has made in traffic safety, but we also continue to be there for those who are injured in our communities.

The State of Traffic Safety in 2025

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Recently, a prosecutor revealed that a loophole in New York law made it challenging to charge a driver who was under the influence of fentanyl and cocaine when he killed four members of a family, a father—a U.S. Marine veteran—and his three children, ages 10, 13, and 6, last year.

The family had gone out for ice cream and were stopped at a red light when driver Michael DeAngelo, who was high, plowed into it. Two older children were killed on impact, as was the 60-year-old father. The youngest child was critically injured and passed away in the hospital days later.

Under the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law 1192(4), it is a crime to operate a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs. However, New York law provides that prosecutors can only charge a driver who has been impaired by drugs if the drug is specified on the list of drugs enumerated by lawmakers. Judges require that the drug must be named prior to arrest. This loophole doesn’t exist in 46 other states; critics of the New York law believe it allows dangerous drivers to stay on the road and continue to put others at risk.

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Recently, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law important road safety rules that extend red light camera programs across the state. Sometimes the pictures that are taken by these cameras provide crucial evidence after an accident. However, there are also steps you should take, even if you’re stunned by the accident, to protect your rights and make it more feasible for our car accident attorneys in White Plains to obtain compensation on your behalf in a lawsuit.

One of the important things you and any other involved drivers can do is to keep cars or other vehicles in the position they were in after a crash. This helps the police investigate the accident and can have bearing on the opinions of a car accident reconstruction expert about who was at fault. However, when a collision happens on the highway or other location where vehicles are traveling at high speeds, it’s vital to move the vehicle to a shoulder or other safe off-road location than to preserve the scene perfectly.

Under New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 600(1) and your car insurance policy, there are four pieces of information you will need to exchange with other drivers in the accident when you know or should know there was property damage, as a result of the collision. These are: your name, address, proof of insurance, and your license plate number. In such cases, you should also report the accident to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

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Pedestrian deaths had been on a decline since 1980 onward. However, since 2009, there have been a rising number of pedestrian deaths on America’s roads; this increase was bumped further during the pandemic. In fact, pedestrian fatalities have increased faster than other kinds of traffic-related deaths. According to the Governors Highway Safety Administration, which analyzed government data on this point, in 2022, a minimum of 7508 people died after being hit by U.S. drivers. The New York Times’s “The Upshot” tried to come up with answers to this surge in pedestrian death using the hivemind of its readers. These answers ranged from increased smartphone use to increasing podcasts and cataracts.

Some of the reader theories seemed stronger, the Upshot suggested. These included LED headlights, streetlight design, aging drivers, and fewer pedestrians, which has meant fewer norms around safety in driving around pedestrians.

One of the most common issues raised by readers was that brighter LED lights, which are intended to help drivers navigate at night are blinding for both pedestrians and oncoming cars, which can lead to death. However, researchers have found that while LED lights are brighter, but they are also becoming safer. The safety ratings for headlights have improved, too; the higher the rating of the headlight, the lower the collision rates, including car crashes with pedestrians, which suggests they haven’t seriously contributed to increased pedestrian death. Similarly, if people were blinded by headlights, thereby causing fatalities among pedestrians, passenger and driver deaths would have gone up, too, which they had not.

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For two centuries, under New York’s wrongful death law, grieving families have been unable to sue for those damages arising out of the emotional injuries engendered by a loved one’s wrongful death. The powerful Retail Wholesale and Department Store Unions (RWDSU), which has around 100,000 members, recently joined a broad coalition of unions that have endorsed the Grieving Families Act and has asked New York Governor Hochul to sign it into law. The Grieving Families Act is a bill sponsored by a New York State Senate Judiciary Chair and New York State Assemblymember that would change the rule that families can’t recover for their emotional injuries when a loved one has died due to another’s neglect or intentional acts; currently families can only recover for pecuniary or economic losses, like loss of inheritance. In recent months there has been a groundswell of support for the Grieving Families Act from working people.

Governor Hochul has until the end of 2023 to sign the bill into law. Last year, she vetoed a broader related piece of legislation stating that the complex issues required her to look closer at the data. The bill is believed by some senators to be appropriate for a veto override in the coming year if that becomes necessary.

The letter also said that the existing wrongful death law suggests that rich workers whose families see significant pecuniary losses upon their deaths are more valuable than middle class or lower income workers. The latter are denied restitution. Construction workers are at particular risk of wrongful death. When workers are killed falling from heights, for example, Labor Law 240, the Scaffold Law, provides the possibility of recovering damages. Under this law, construction owners and contractors are expected to provide safety measures to protect workers from falls and falling objects; these safety measures could include ladders, slings, hoists, scaffolding, hangers, pulleys, stays, and ropes. The law provides absolute liability for owners and contractors when they have failed to protect workers. Even so, the families of these workers cannot recover damages for their emotional injuries as the result of their losses—which are tremendous regardless of the amount of money their loved one made and used to support them.

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