Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents

Hit-and-run car accidents happen more often that you think. As a Central and Syracuse New York car accident lawyer, I know. I have handled dozens of cases like that. And there was just a hit-and-run in Auburn, New York this week. News media report that an Auburn, NY resident was seriously injured Saturday at 1:45 a.m. when a hit-and-run car crashed into him while he was riding on his scooter on Division Street. The scoundrel drove off and left the poor scooter-driver high-and-dry — and seriously injured. The police are asking anyone with information about this tragic, and despicable, act to contact them. So please do!

This same thing could happen to you, whether you are a pedestrian or in your car. Let’s say the cops never find the bum who hit you. Where can you turn for help getting your medical bills paid, and your lost wages reimbursed? And against whom can you bring claim pain and suffering compensation?

The answer? “Your own automobile insurer”. That’s right, your own car insurance has a provision in it called “uninsured motorist coverage”. That means that if an uninsured or a hit-and-run motorist strikes you as a pedestrian, or while you are in your car, you (and your passengers) can claim wage loss replacement and medical benefits (“no-fault”) as well as liability benefits (generally “pain and suffering compensation”) through your own “uninsured motorist coverage”.

After I posted my last blog, entitled, How Should I Handle My NY Traffic Violation Ticket When I Was Injured In a Car Accident, fellow New York personal injury lawyer Christina Sonsire, of the Ziff Law Firm in Elmira, New York, emailed me. She formerly worked as an assistant district attorney, so she knows criminal law, whereas I, admittedly, do not. Christina, a fine New York personal injury and medical malpractice attorney, brought to my attention that my advice might have been a bit misguided. She informed me that, at least in some counties in New York, not showing up for a traffic violation trial might not result in a conviction, but rather the judge will “scoff” you, which could be worse than a mere conviction. To quote, Christina:

“Instead, the court will scoff her license when she does not show. The scoff will result in a suspension of her driver’s license, setting her up for a misdemeanor if she drives and is caught”.

In the case I blogged about, the accused doesn’t drive, so she need not worry about this. But as a general matter, I don’t think it is a good idea to “scoff” a judge! Therefore, my advice to an injured victim of a car accident who is contemplating a claim against a negligent driver, but who was also ticketed for a traffic violation related to the car accident, would probably be to show up for traffic court trial and “take the fifth” (refuse to testify)! That way you don’t “scoff” the judge by failing to appear, you don’t plead guilty to a violation (which could hurt your personal injury case) and you don’t give testimony which could come back to haunt you in your personal injury case. Instead, you are merely convicted of a traffic violation. And that won’t be admissible as evidence in your personal injury case. Although paying the fine, and taking the points on your license, might hurt, it might be worth the price of preserving your personal injury case intact, especially if you are very hurt.

A New York motor vehicle accident case I recently handled illustrates how traffic court and New York motor vehicle injury law intersect. Here’s the scenario: A car strikes a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Pedestrian is hurt. The cop, however, faults the pedestrian, and tickets her for leaving the curb without looking when the car was already too close. Normally the pedestrian has the right of way in a crosswalk, but not when she leaves the curb when the car to close to avoid her (New York Vehicle & Traffic Law 1151[2]).

It is surprising that the cop tickets the pedestrian because she was actually quite a ways out into the crosswalk when she was struck, and the car driver admitted she had been distracted looking to the side of the road at another pedestrian just before she struck the pedestrian in the crosswalk.

The pedestrian has a court date on the crosswalk violation. If convicted of the violation, she will get a fine of, at most, $270. If you were the injured pedestrian’s New York personal injury lawyer, what would you advise her to do? Three options: (1) go to traffic court and tell her story so that she doesn’t get convicted of the traffic violation; or (2) bargain with the D.A. to plead guilty to some lesser charge to reduce the fine; or (3) just don’t show up to court and let them convict her.

Now that spring is finally here, motorcycles are, too. This Syracuse and Central New York motorcycle accident lawyer knows — I’ve already gotten a few calls about motorcycle accidents.

If you ride a bike, maybe God can keep you safe. It seems that many bikers think so. On April 27, the American Bikers Aimed Toward Education (ABATE) revved up the season with the traditional “Blessing of the Bikes” at St. Daniel’s Church in Lyncourt. With over 1,500 central New York motorcyclists in attendance, Monsigner Eugene Yennock took about an hour to bless each bike.

ABATE does good work – they promote bike safety in Syracuse and Central New York and beyond, and they sponsor the Blessing-of-the-Bikes ceremony, too. But you don’t need divine intervention to avoid motorcycle accidents.

Local news sources report that a passing motorist struck and killed a trooper as he was writing another motorist a traffic ticket on the shoulder of Interstate 290 near the town of Tonawanda.

This is every traffic cop’s nightmare. And mine, too. As a Central and Syracuse New York car accident lawyer who has represented several police officers and deputy sheriffs struck by negligent motorists, I am particularly sensitive to the risks our law enforcement officers voluntarily assume every working day to protect the rest of us from law breaking motorists.

There they are, hunched over the driver’s window of a stopped car on the shoulder of the roadway, within inches of the roadway itself, exposed to the risk of distracted drivers running them over. I always worry about how close some of the vehicles are passing by. These police officers risk their lives every time they write a ticket! Fortunately, most, but not all, passing motorists have the common sense to slow down and move over to the left to give the guy some space.

So here’s another upstate New York school bus accident. This one in Victor. About 9 a.m. this morning, a Victor Central School District bus was stopped on School Street to pick up some students, with its warning lights and stop sign activated, when another Victor school bus, instead of stopping and waiting, tries to go around it, strikes it, then strikes a car stopped and waiting just ahead, and jumps the curb.

Ten people, nine of them children, were taken to local hospitals.

So here was the question I asked of my blog readers earlier today: “What the heck was that second bus driver thinking?” I mean, driving past a stopped school bus is just about the biggest traffic offense out there (that’s why it’s a 5-pointer), but can you believe that a school bus driver would do that?

Hey, have you noticed a surge in New York bus accidents recently? Within the last few months I have blogged about several Central and Syracuse New York bus accidents. You can read those blogs here, here, and here . Then, just last week, a bus veered off Interstate 95 in the Bronx as it was returning to Chinatown (NY) from an overnight outing at a Connecticut casino. Witnesses, including survivors, dispute the driver’s claim that that a truck clipped the bus before it ran off the road.

The bus was carrying Asian immigrants back to Chinatown (NY) from a casino outing in Connecticut. Fifteen of them never made it home — they ended up dead instead. And they were just out to have some fun gambling. I’ll bet they had no idea they were gambling with their lives just by climbing aboard the bus. But they were: Turns out the bus driver had a history of driving offenses so significant that his license had been suspended. But there’s more; he had also served time for manslaughter and grand larceny.

Now you tell me, what kind of a bus company would hire a driver with felony convictions and a driving record the size of a phone book? Answer: A cheap, fly-by-night, profit-hungry one. You see, they can hire ex-cons with lousy driving records and suspended licenses on the cheap, which drives up their profit margin. Only problem is their customers end up getting killed. As long as they pay first, no problem, right?

Yesterday when I gave my tips about how to minimize injuries in a rear-end collision, I forgot to mention a few things. First, to recap,yesterday I recommended waiting to turn left with your front wheels straight rather than turned left. This can avoid a flip-over in the event of a hard-impact rear-end collision. But what I did not mention was that this also prevents a second danger — getting pushed into on-coming traffic, where you can get hit head-on by an on-coming car. That’s a double wammy — a rear-end followed by a head-on. Doesn’t get much worse.

Here’s something else I forgot to mention: A few years ago we handled a Central New York motor vehicle accident case where a client was stopped at a red light waiting to turn left with his left signal on. He got rear-ended hard, and, because he had turned his steering wheel left in anticipation of his turn, he got pushed into the oncoming lane, where his front-seat passenger (his wife) got killed by the impact.

Now if you were an insurance defense attorney representing the driver of the vehicle that rear-ended our client at a red light, what would you do? Would you concede that your client was fully responsible for the accident? Sure, you or I or any normal human being would do that, but not an insurance defense lawyer. They are not normal. They feel compelled to raise any argument, no matter how ridiculous or frivolous, in order to placate the hand that feeds them, that is, the insurance company.

I blogged earlier today about the Savannah NY school bus collision with a snowplow. From the news reports I had at that time, I did not know any facts about the case, other than that there had been a collision. More recent news reports indicate that the school slammed into the rear of Town of Savannah snowplow. The school children with the most seriously injuries were all sitting in the front seat on the right side of the bus. Two students were trapped in the bus for about half an hour. The bus driver was also trapped. Sixteen children were taken to nearby hospitals. All the students were in 5th or 6th grade.

Apparently, the bus had just dropped off some students at Clyde Elementary School and then proceeded down Route 31 to drop off the rest at Savannah Elementary School. At some point, the bus slammed into the rear of the snowplow, which was, in fact, engaged in plowing activities. News reports say the crash happened near the top of a hill, with snowy fields nearby. Investigators speculate glare from the sun on the snow may have affected the bus driver’s ability to see the plow.

Under New York motor vehicle liability law, however, a driver who rear-ends another vehicle is almost always held legally liable for the collision. Drivers have a duty to see what is there to be seen, and if they have difficulty seeing because of glare or other factors, they should stop, pull over, or proceed slowly with extreme caution. Rare is the case where a rear-ending vehicle’s driver escapes liability in court. Therefore, it seems likely here that the bus driver was at fault, which makes the school district employer liable to all the injured children. The school district’s insurance should cover this unfortunate accident. But, as I mentioned in my previous blog, the children are required, under New York law, to serve upon the school district a “notice of claim” within 90 days of the accident.

News sources say several people were injured when a Clyde-Savannah school bus, packed with 22 elementary school children, and a snowplow collided on Route 31 near Hogsback Road in the Town of Savannah, New York at about 7:50 this morning. A woman, apparently the bus driver, and an 11-year-old boy, were airlifted from the scene to Upstate (SUNY) Hospital in Syracuse. The woman is apparently in critical condition. Eight ambulances and two helicopters reported to the scene.

Our hopes to a speedy recovery to all victims. As the father of 5 children, I can feel the worry, pain and anguish of the parents! And as a lawyer, I have already started to think about this unfortunate accident from a legal perspective. Here are some complications that I see, from my perspective as a Central New York and Syracuse car and bus accident lawyer, in this school bus accident case:

In New York, if the snowplow driver was on the job removing snow or salting for a municipal employer, such as the County, and was “actually engaged in work on a highway”, under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1103(b) the injured victims can only prevail in court if the snowplow driver was driving in such a careless manner that it amounts to “reckless disregard” to the public. But as to any claim against the school bus driver, a mere “negligence” standard applies. Therefore, for the injured children to get liability compensation for their injuries, they are going to have to show that either the bus driver was “negligent” and/or that the plow driver was “reckless”, unless the snowplow driver was not working for a municipality, or was not actually engaged in plow work at the time, in which case the injured victims will have to show only that both or either the plow driver or the school bus driver were “negligent”. Complicated? You bet.