Last week we posted a blog concerning the NYC Pedestrian Safety Study conducted by the New York City Department of Transportation.  Based on the study’s findings, the DOT has made several action plan recommendations to continue to drive down pedestrian traffic fatalities and ensure New York City truly has world class streets that are safe for everyone. (more…)

Last week we posted a blog discussing the U.S. Department of Transportation proposal requiring seat belts in buses to attempt to reduce bus accident fatalities. Coincidentally, I’m in Japan on a tour bus equipped with a seat belt. In and of itself barely noteworthy, except that as we’re about to enter a highway, the tour guide announced that everyone should put on their seatbelt. Apparently, in Japan wearing a seatbelt on a bus that is travelling on a highway is required. (more…)

Baby slings – soft fabrics that wrap around the chest so that busy parents can carry their babies or just stay close as they bond with their infants – are potentially dangerous products that continue to be of great concern. This past week the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced the recall of about 40 Sprout Stuff infant ring slings. The CPSC advised consumers to immediately stop using Sprout Stuff infant ring slings due to a risk of suffocation to infants. This recall follows one on March 24, 2010 by Infantino LLC, of more than one million Infantino “SlingRider” and “Wendy Bellissimo” infant slings. (more…)

Between 2006 and 2008, 290 pedestrians aged 60 years and older were killed in motor vehicle accidents on downstate New York roads. Though comprising just over 17 percent of the area’s population, people aged 60 and older accounted for 42 percent of the total pedestrian fatalities during the three-year period. Those aged 75 years and older represent less than 6 percent of the downstate New York’s population, but nearly 20 percent of pedestrian deaths. Details are contained in a report released earlier this month by Tri-State Transportation Campaign titled “The Most Dangerous Roads for Walking”. (more…)

New York State mandates that every policy of liability insurance issued to a motor vehicle provide Supplementary Uninsured Motorists (“SUM”) coverage. This coverage protects policyholders and residents of their household when a negligent party is either uninsured or has a smaller amount of liability coverage than the amount of SUM coverage. One of the advantages of SUM coverage is that it affords coverage to the policyholder and his or her household members even if the insured vehicle is not involved in the motor vehicle accident. (more…)

On October 15, 2003, the Staten Island Ferry vessel Andrew J. Barberi missed its dock and hit a maintenance pier at full speed. Eleven people were killed and 71 injured, some critically. Yesterday the same ferry lost some of its engine ability to slow and stop and slammed into a pier. Nearly 40 people of the 252 people on board were taken to hospitals. People were treated for injuries including cuts, bruises, broken bones and head trauma. After the first crash, which resulted when the ship’s pilot became incapacitated and no other crew member was in position to help, the City of New York unsuccessfully tried to claim that its liability to those who sustained personal injuries was limited to the value of the vessel and pending freight pursuant to an 1851 federal statute.  (more…)

The dead man’s switch is a handle the subway operator must keep depressed while the train is in motion. If the train operator lets go, the train will stop immediately as if an emergency brake was pulled. Every subway train comes equipped with a dead man’s switch.  Last week a motorman of a G train in Long Island City was pulling out of the Court Square station when it suddenly stopped. The conductor walked to the cab and found the motorman unconscious, having suffered a fatal heart attack while the train was in motion.  Because the train automatically stopped there were no injuries. (more…)

Deciding whether to have back surgery after a motor vehicle or other type of accident is a decision our clients often have to make. It is usually not an easy decision. No doctor in his or her right mind will guarantee the results of surgery – to the contrary, in making sure not to do so, many doctors scare their patients when rightfully advising them that they may feel worse after the surgery. More than one client who had surgery have lamented that they wish they never had the surgery, especially when spinal fusion has been performed. Their concerns have been confirmed in a just released study that shows that invasive fusion procedures are associated with a higher risk of life threatening complications. (more…)

Amongst the most compelling aspects of this weekend’s historically strong storm is the number of fatalities that resulted from falling trees. Six people were reported to have been killed as a result of the storm that knocked down hundreds of trees in the New York City area. Any attempt to sue the owner of the trees for personal injuries or wrongful death will likely be met with the defense that the storm was so unusually violent – a wind gust of hurricane force (75 MPH) was recorded at Kennedy Airport – that the tree falling was an Act of God for which no person can be blamed negligence. But even conceding the unusual circumstances, that may not be the end of the case. (more…)

At first it was coffee. Now it’s chicken sandwiches and cancer. Perhaps the greatest propaganda tool for the insurance industry in its self-serving campaign against supposedly frivolous lawsuits is the so-called “McDonald’s Case” where the plaintiff sued for spilling hot coffee on herself. Never mind the hundreds and hundreds of prior complaints against the coffee McDonald’s deliberately super-heated in order to keep customers from realizing just how bad it tasted, or the third-degree burns to sensitive, private areas requiring grafting. (more…)