Articles Posted in Car Accidents in New York

When you have been injured in a New York car crash, you will be contacted by two insurance companies–your own, and the carrier for the car that hit you. As will be described below, the simple rule is: cooperate with your insurance company, and hang up on the other driver’s representative. In New York, your medical, hospital, and miscellaneous bills and expenses are paid through your own No-Fault insurance coverage. Therefore, you must cooperate in every way with your own insurance company to ensure that your bills are paid, lost wages compensated, and other expenses such as property damage are paid for.

However, soon after the New York car accident, you will invariably hear from the other driver’s insurance representative. Under the guise of simply “wanting to know how you are doing”, this insurance representative will request that you provide a written or recorded statement regarding the accident, and what measures you took to avoid the accident. YOU MUST NOT COOPERATE. Remember that these insurance adjusters are trained to ask you leading, misleading or confusing questions with the goal of attributing some or all of the fault of the accident to you. Their hope is to obtain a damaging statement from you before you have had the opportunity to speak with a lawyer who would obviously advise you against providing the other driver’s insurance company with anything. Sometimes, these adjusters will attempt to visit you with a release and small settlement check in hand, to try to get a settlement before you have met with a lawyer. Bottom line–when the other company calls, tell them you are meeting with your attorney, and hang up the phone. Don’t say anything, don’t write anything, and whatever you do, DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING.

If you or a loved one is injured in a car accident, or any other type of accident, contact the personal injury lawyers at The Law Office Of Mark A. Siesel online or toll free at 888-761-7633 for a free consultation with an experienced, aggressive and knowledgeable advocate who will fight to obtain the maximum possible compensation for your injuries.

In a national written driving test sponsored by GMAC Insurance, New York drivers scored lower than any other state in the nation this year, according to the company. New Jersey drivers scored the lowest last year. The test consists of 20 questions about driving rules that are uniform across the U.S. New York drivers averaged 70.5%, passing the test, but barely. Conversely, Idaho and Wisconsin drivers tied for first place with average scores of 80.6%.

However, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles, NYDMV noted that there are substantially fewer fatal car accidents in New York per capita than in Idaho or Wisconsin, where drivers scored the best on the written driving tests. The New York DMV suggests that drivers go to the DMV website for information on defensive driving classes which can reduce points on your license and lower insurance payments.

To try out the written test yourself, go to the GMAC test page. For the record, I took the test and got an 80%, meaning that I missed 4 questions out of the 20. I must say that I was surprised to learn that you are permitted to pass on the right (obviously, everybody does it but I did not know it was legal) when traveling on a multi-lane highway carrying two or more lanes of traffic in the same direction–just shows that you can always learn something new!

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According to a study by the Network of Employers For Traffic Safety, distracted driving is a factor in 25% to 30% of all car accidents, or 4,000 car crashes every day. As hard as it is to believe, drivers make an average of 200 decisions for every mile traveled, making it all the more critical that your attention is on the road, not on that important meeting you are heading to or a cell phone call you need to make in the car. The same study found that distracted drivers fail to recognize potential safety hazards on the road and react more slowly to traffic conditions, decreasing their margin of safety.

To know if you are driving distracted, take the following test: Have you ever slammed on your brakes because you didn’t see the car in front of you stop? Run a stop sign unintentionally? Forgot entirely that you drove from one place to another? If so, you have been “driving while distracted.”

The study identified the percentages of distracting activities that drivers engage in: 96% talk to their passengers; 89% adjust vehicle climate and radio controls; 74% eat a meal or snack; 51% use a cell phone; 41% tend to children; 34% read a map; and 19% groom themselves for work.

It is certainly a given that you will be speaking with your children in the car, but I have seen people shaving, putting on makeup, reading a map, making a cell phone call with no hands on the wheel, adjusting their radio, and turning around to speak with their passengers on many occasions, and have had to avert numerous wayward drivers due to these activities.

The best advice is to eat that snack, make that call, comb your hair and get your directions before getting in the car, so we can all be safer on the roads!

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According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in which NHTSA reported on motor vehicle deaths from 2001 through 2006, there are five holidays that drivers should try to steer clear of, if at all possible. The fifth most dangerous holiday is New Year’s Day, (which surprised this writer–I would have thought it would be the most dangerous with the amount of alcohol consumed and volume of drivers on the roadways) with an average of 421 vehicular deaths. The fourth most dangerous holiday is Labor Day weekend, especially as a result of overcrowded roads and out of town travel. There was an average of 488 deaths for the 6 year period of the study. Number 3, with an average of 493 deaths, is Memorial Day Weekend, with coastal roads overcrowded with 38 million people on the roads, according to AAA statistics.

The second most lethal holiday for drivers is Independence Day, with average motorist deaths at 505. It is estimated that 53% of July 4th crashes involve at least one drunk driver. The most dangerous holiday of all? That would be Thanksgiving, with too much wine at dinner, perhaps, and possibly extra exhaustion from an over indulgence in rich foods–this holiday averaged 573 vehicular deaths over the last 6 years, and in 2006, there were 623 traffic fatalities. So please be extra careful this Thanksgiving!

If you, a family member or relative are injured in a car accident or any other type of accident, contact The Law Office Of Mark A. Siesel online or toll free at 888-761-7633 for a free consultation with an experienced, aggressive attorney who will fight to get you the maximum compensation for your pain and suffering, lost earnings and loss of quality of life.

New York City Councilman David Weprin has introduced a bill which would ban the sending or reading of text messages while driving within New York City. As the Queens Democrat stated: You’re not looking at the road and you don’t have both hands on the wheel when driving while text messaging… the probability for auto accidents is too high to ignore.” The bill will be modeled after New York State’s ban on the use of cellphones while driving, which imposes a $100.00 fine for this violation of the New York Vehicle & Traffic Law.

The proposal was prompted by the tragic fatal car crash in New York’s Finger Lakes region last summer when 5 teenage girls riding in an SUV died. The accident investigation revealed that the driver was sending a text message when she swerved into oncoming traffic and the vehicle collided with a tractor-trailer.

There are only four states that currently ban texting while driving, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association–Alaska, Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington. Legislation to do the same is under consideration in 16 other states, according to Mr. Weprin’s staff. Based on a 2006 study by Nationwide Insurance, 19% of drivers text message at the wheel, including a whopping 37% of drivers between the ages of 18 and 27.

The Journal Archives of Surgery published a study on March 17th which found that a year after an injury in a car accident, slip and fall or other types of accidents, 63 percent reported that they still had substantial pain related to the injury. The over 3,000 patients studied were 18 to 84 years of age, who had survived a traumatic injury.

The people in the study suffered head injuries, broken limbs, chest or abdominal trauma and other injuries in motor vehicle crashes, slip/trip and fall accidents and other circumstances. The most common areas of pain were in the joints and limbs (44 %), the back (26 %), the head (12 %), and the neck (7 %).

The American Pain Foundation, a Baltimore-based advocacy group, said the financial cost of chronic pain in the United States, including lost income, health care expenses and lost productivity in the workplace, is estimated to be $100 billion per year. According to this foundation, back pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old.

Florence Cioffi, a woman who survived 9/11 and was just days from her 60th birthday, was killed in a New York City car accident on January 24 when she was run over by a vehicle driven by computer software executive George Anderson just before 11:00 PM on Water Street in Manhattan. Mr. Anderson kept driving, but returned to the scene a short time later, where he was observed by police officers to have bloodshot eyes, smell of alcohol, and have slurred speech. Mr. Anderson refused a police request to take a breathalyzer test. Police immediately administered a blood alcohol test; the results have not been announced yet.

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Global positoning devices (GPS), although a lifesaver to some, have been blamed for numerous New York car accidents over the last few years. Most recently, earlier this month, a driver from California caused a fiery car accident when he turned on to railroad tracks in Bedford Hills and his vehicle was struck by an oncoming train when the car became stuck on the tracks.

The driver, a 32 year old who works for a SIlicon Valley tech company, claims that the GPS device in his vehicle instructed him to turn right onto the train tracks leading to the January 4 New York motor vehicle accident with the oncoming train. The driver exited the vehicle before the accident and was not injured.

Since 2005, according to Dan Brucker of Metro-North railroad, a growing number of out of state drivers have informed police that they were following GPS devices instead of paying attention to signs at parkway entrances. A spokeman for Garmin, the largest GPS seller in North America, indicated that 15% of cars are now equipped with the GPS devices.

2007 continued a trend of numerous New York car accidents on suburban New York roadways dominated by aggressive, inattentive drivers causing numerous car accidents and fatalities. According to Captain John Hodges of the Westchester County Police, the main causes of these New York car crashes and auto deaths are: speeding, driving while intoxicated, following too closely, taking curves too fast and weaving in and out of traffic.

New York car accidents are also being caused by inattentive drivers who are speaking on cell phones, adjusting their global positioning devices, and listening to their IPods with earphones. Additionally, a new and shocking trend that has been observed by motorists and police patrols alike is young drivers text messaging while driving!

Fatal accidents in New York rose from 2005 to 2006 in the counties of Westchester, Rockland and Putnam. Statistics are not yet available for 2007. DWI arrests on Westchester County roadways increased from 470 to 494 in 2007 due to more aggressive enforcement, according to Capt. Hodges.

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November 2007 has been a treacherous month on the Bronx River Parkway in New York. On November 13, 2007, we did a report “Fatal Accident on the Bronx River Parkway…” describing the New York fatal car crash in which a Yonkers couple, Bernard and Phyllis Cecere, was killed when their vehicle was struck by an apparently speeding car driven by 19 year old Justin Martinez near Oak Street in Yonkers.

On November 26, 2007, an Orange County man was killed and a Peekskill woman seriously injured in a nearly head on collision on the Bronx River Parkway just north of the Virginia Road exit. On a curvy section of the roadway heading southbound, Dawn Young was driving a 2004 Jeep Liberty when she apparently crossed the double yellow line, colliding with a 2005 Mazda being driven by Gerald Wolfe, who died from his injuries at Westchester Medical Center. Ms. Young’s injuries are not considered life threatening. This was second fatal accident in the exact same location of the Parkway; back in October of 1999, three people were killed when a carjacking suspect at the wheel of a stolen Cadillac veered onto the southbound side of the Parkway near Virginia Road and struck the vehicle of a Chappaqua couple on their way home from church. Ironically, after several years of delay due to federal government regulations requiring the installation of storm water basins, construction work was scheduled to begin the same day of the most recent fatal car crash to install center barriers from Cemetery Road at exit 23 to Lafayette Avenue at Exit 27. However, work was delayed due to the inclement weather conditions.

The Westchester County Police have indicated that it is too early to determine if alcohol, drugs, the poor weather conditions, or slippery roads were factors in the fatal car accident.

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