Personal Injury Attorneys - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and the Bronx

In the case of Lifson v. City of Syracuse and Derek Klink New York’s Court of Appeals held that a driver who, while making a left turn, struck and killed a pedestrian whom he did not see until only a fraction of a second before hitting her because of sun glare, was not entitled to have the jury instructed on the emergency doctrine.   The court''s  majority and dissenting opinions battled  over whether the fact known to all that the sun sets in the west can excuse a driver who claims sun glare blocked his view.  If I were representing the pedestrian, I would argue that nothing prevented the driver from seeing my client before he began to make his turn.  The court's decision is silent as to that aspect of the accident, possibly for reasons that the record on appeal would make clear..

If I had a dollar for every time a defendant argued in a summary judgment motion that it was not negligent because the condition that caused my clients accident was open and obvious . With words that every defense counsel (and Judge) should never overlook, the Appellate Division, First Department opened a recent opinion with the sentence: In this personal injury action, we reiterate the well established principle that a finding of open and obvious as to a hazardous condition is never fatal to a plaintiffs negligence claim. It is relevant only to plaintiffs comparative fault. Saretsky v. 85 Kenmare Realty Corp., 2011 WL 1796367 (May 12, 2011). Even though this is not new law, you would be surprised how many times cases are dismissed solely because the condition is open and obvious. What is often overlooked is that although there is no duty to warn where a dangerous condition is open and o

This years report from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign concerning pedestrian safety in the New York City region finds that an average of 415 pedestrians are killed in New Jersey, downstate New York, and Connecticut each year. The report, Most Dangerous Roads for Walking, uses three years of federal data to pinpoint the exact location of each pedestrian death in downstate New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The chart below compares some of thisyear's figureswith last's.The most dangerous places for people to walk are roadways known as arterials - wide, high-speed roads designed to move as many cars

A report released earlier this month by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) reveals that pedestrian fatalities increased during the first six months of 2010, by seven, from 1,884 to 1,891. The increase is small 0.4 percent but is notable because overall traffic fatalities during this period were significantly down, and it comes on the heels of four straight years of steady declines in pedestrian deaths. If the second six months of 2010 also show no significant change, this will be the first year of increase or no progress after four years of decline. Pedestrian traffic fatalities dropped from 4,892 in 2005 to 4,091 in 2009, an average decline of 200 each year. New York, however, like California and Texas, experienced reductions in pedestrian fatali

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released a data report focused upon traffic death statistics and touting its plans to improve safety in 2010-2011. The data in this report are from the NYC Department of Transportations (DOT) Traffic Fatality Database, the primary source of traffic-related death and injury statistics in New York City. Key findings included (1) males and people in their 20s make up a disproportionately high number of those killed in motor vehicle accidents compared to their prevalence in the population; (2) traffic fatalities in NYC disproportionately occur on major streets; (3) pedestrian fatalities occur most often at intersections along major streets; (4) risky driver behavior contributes to NYCs traffic fatalities unsafe speed, driver inattention, failure to yi

In Dowd vs. New York City Transit Authority, 2010 WL 4678916 (November 16, 2010), the 79-year old decedent was struck by a bus that was backing out of a parking space at the bus terminal located at 165th Street and Merrick Boulevard in Queens. Part of the maneuver needed to exit from the parking space required a bus operator to reverse the bus, encroaching on the sidewalk that ran along Merrick Boulevard, before moving forward to exit on 89th Avenue. Because of a blind spot directly behind the bus, bus operators are advised that they are to ask a responsible person to guide them when they are backing up, and to avoid backing up a bus alone. The accident occurred at 6:20 A.M. on June 2, 2006, when the bus driver sounded his horn and reversed slowly out of the spot with the reverse alarm automatically sounding. The

In 2009, 4,092 pedestrians were killed and 59,000 were injured in traffic crashes. Of those killed, 25 percent died between 4 P.M. and 8 P.M. and another 13 percent between 4 A.M. and 8 A.M. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) warns drivers that adjusting to the new low-light environment can take time, and that driving while distracted puts everyone and especially pedestrians - at greater risk of death or injury. With the turning back of the clocks last weekend, the NHTSA cautions motorists and pedestrians to be more attentive to roadway risks, and offers specific advice:

We've returned from Japan and notice other differences concerning safetybesides the seat belt requirement in motor buses. For one thing, at every construction site there was one and sometimes two men in official looking outfits that somewhat resembled police uniforms, wearing helmets, standing on the street or on the sidewalk to direct vehicular and pedestrian traffic.They were there even if nothing going on inside the work-site appeared to be effecting the street or sidewalk. Although I've noticed workers on 0ccasion positioned at an entrance to a construction site, they only seem present when something directly affecting the adjacent sidewalk or roadway is going on, and they wear the regular a

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. This plan includes, the installation of countdown pedestrian signals at 1,500 intersections around the city, re-engineering 60 miles of streets for greater pedestrian safety, according to corridor crash data and 20 intersections for pedestrian safety o

In 1910, the City of New York began collecting data to determine traffic fatalities among NYC pedestrians. Nearly a century later, in 2009, pedestrian fatalities are at its lowest rate in New York City history, down by 35% from 2001. The New York City Department of Transportation is undertaking an ambitious task to reduce by half the number of traffic deaths by 2030, to do this, the agency has collected and analyzed data about the causes of traffic deaths and injuries and where they are happening, using this information to design better streets. This landmark study, Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, worked to identify the causes, common factors, and geographic distribution of over 7,000 pedestrian crashes in New York City. So far, the study has found that NYCs traffic fatality rate