Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents

The Syracuse Post Standard reported the other day that an SUV struck a Syracuse man “on purpose” after an argument on Westcott Street Tuesday morning. Fortunately, the injuries do not appear serious; the victim suffered only cuts to his arm and leg and was taken to Upstate University Hospital.

Here’s my blog topic for today: Will a New York State car accident insurance policy cover the man’s medical expenses or anything else for that matter? Answer: No! Why not? Because this is not a New York motor vehicle “accident” case. It is a New York motor vehicle ASSAULT case. An accident is a mistake. This was no mistake. It was deliberate. No liability or car insurance on God’s earth covers for motor vehicle assaults. The reason is simple: Insurance companies don’t want people buying insurance policies so they can go out and deliberately bowl people over, and force the insurance company to pay!

Even if the victim owns his own car, his own SUM (supplemental uninsured motorist) coverage won’t cover his injuries here, again because it was an “assault”, not an “accident”. To summarize: He can forget about auto insurance coverage of any kind!

Yesterday the New York Times reported that, while drunken-driving deaths are dropping, car-accident deaths caused by drivers who have taken legally prescribed narcotics, such as painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medications, and other potent drugs, are increasing. Unlike with alcohol, no firm studies or guidelines exist determining what blood level of these drugs impairs driving. Yet the drugs, in many cases, clearly cause driving to deteriorate. They can impair motor skills, slow reaction time, and undermine judgment. For example, anti-anxiety drugs can make a driver less alert, and slower to react. Stimulants, on the other hand, can lead to risk-taking and diminished judgment. Drivers “on drugs” (albeit legal ones) often have many of the symptoms of drunk drivers — bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, or erratic driving.

So here’s my blog topic of the day: What happens, in a New York car accident lawsuit, if the defendant driver who you claim is at fault for the car accident, was “on drugs” (albeit legally prescribed ones) at the time of the collision? Can the fact that he or she took prescription drugs before the crash be used in Court to make out your case?

Answer: Yes, of course! Most prescription drugs that can affect driving have clear indications on them that they should not be ingested before driving or using machinery. And besides, common sense dictates the same. The motorist who struck your car should have known better, and had a duty to either refrain from using the drugs or refrain from driving. So it is no excuse that the drugs taken by the driver, who, say, swerved into your lane, were “legal”.

The Cayuga County Sheriff reports that yesterday afternoon a car crossed over into the oncoming lane of traffic and collided into a bus carrying disabled people on Route 34 in Fleming, New York (just a few miles south of the Central New York personal injury llaw office of Michaels Bersani Kalabanka, P.C., on Route 34 in Auburn, New York). A 73-year-old female passenger was killed, and 15 others were taken to hospitals. The collision flipped the bus over onto its side, causing lots of injury to the passengers.

From my years of experience as a Central New York car accident lawyer handling head-on collision cases, I know that this type of car accident, more than t-bones, or rear-end collisions, is especially terrifying. The seconds before the collision seem like an eternity because you can SO see it coming! Perhaps the bus passengers here were lucky enough to have avoided this terrifying scene. But the impact also is usually horrific; twice as bad as with any other kind of automobile collision. That’s because the combined speed of the two vehicles hurling against each other doubles the force exerted against the vehicles, and the people inside them..

Another anomoly of cross-over collisions is that the vehicles don’t usually meet exactly at center point, but rather the left sides of the front of each vehicle tend to meet. And since the left side is where the drivers are located, this makes impact even worse for the drivers. Also, the off-center impact can cause a vehicle to spin or flip, which might explain why the bus flipped in this Flemming, New York accident.

The Syracuse Post Standard reports that a Baldwinsville man got a one-to-three year jail sentence for seriously injuring two motorcyclists last fall in a Syracuse, New York car-on-motorcycle collision. He was driving through the intersection of Hiawatha Boulevard and State Fair Boulevard in Syracuse with a .08 blood-alcohol count when he turned left into an oncoming motorcycle. The driver of the motorcycle ended up having the lower part a leg amputated. The motorcyclist’s passenger also suffered leg and back injuries in the crash, and still walks with a cane.

From my experience as a Syracuse New York motorcycle accident lawyer, I can tell you this is an all too common car-on-motorcycle crash in three ways: (1) the car turned left in front of the bike, violating his right-of-way (a very common cause of car-on-bike crashes); (2) the motorist clearly failed to see the motorcycle (also very common); (3) the motorcyclist lost a leg (a common injury in motorcycle accident cases – we represented a cyclist last year who had to have a leg amputated as well); and (4) alcohol was involved (again, far too common).

What are these New York motorcycle accident victims’ rights (besides seeing this guy go to jail)? They both have a strong claim under New York motor vehicle accident law for compensation from the driver, and from his insurer. The problem is this: I can almost guaranty you that his insurance policy won’t have a high enough limit to fully compensate these horrific injuries. And the motorist himself, now in jail and with no income, won’t be able to contribute a dime. So these Syracuse motorcycle accident victims will probably just remain under-compensated (unless they have something known as “SUM” coverage in their own motorcycle insurance policy, which I will discuss in a later blog). Unfortunately, this too is all too common.

True heroism is rare. Strictly speaking, sports figures are not “heroes”. In order to be a true “heroe”, you must risk your own life to save someone else’s.

This past June 10th, two true local heroes saved a life, all while risking their own. Joseph and Anna Buttaccio of Newark were just passing by on Route 31 in the Town of Palmyra when they saw a head-on collision between two cars. One of the cars then left the roadway and burst into flames. Disregarding risk to their own lives, the two heroes reached into the burning wreck and dragged the driver to safety. They suffered burn injuries themselves, but, fortunately, they don’t appear to be serious.

The driver whose life they saved was air-lifted to Strong Hospital, where he remains in guarded condition. He suffered not only severe burn injuries, but also a traumatic head injury, including a fractured skull. Although this driver appears to have been at fault for the collision (he had crossed over into the oncoming car’s lane of travel), and may have to answer to criminal charges (the driver of the other car is very seriously injured, too), and will almost certainly be a defendant in a New York motor vehicle accident lawsuit, for now he should simply be grateful to be alive. And that he owes to the Buttaccios of Newark.

I have written several blog posts about “distracted driving” – motorists driving while texting and driving while talking on their cell phones. (See those posts by clicking here, here, here and here). As I said in those blog posts, distracted driving is quickly becoming a leading cause of motor vehicle accidents, and of auto injury lawsuits, not only in Central New York and Syracuse, but all over the U.S. But this latest story brings “distracted driving” to a new level:

Last Wednesday, an expecting Minnesota mother felt labor pains, jumped in her car, picked up the father (who does not drive because he is prone to seizures) at work, and was heading straight to the hospital when the baby — well —- just “slipped out”. She GAVE BIRTH while driving herself to the hospital! The baby’s father helped by steering the car from the passenger’s seat. After birth, the mother had the father steer the car, again from the passenger seat, to the hospital. It appears that mom and newborn both checked out fine.

Now that’s what I call distracted driving — both by mom and dad!

Being hurt in a New York car accident when it’s not your fault doesn’t necessarily mean you have a good case. You have to be “seriously injured” to get compensation from the at-fault driver’s insurance. Otherwise, all you get is your no-fault benefits (up to a maximum of $50,000 in medical bills and lost wages combined), which comes from your own insurance, even if you were not at fault. (That’s why it’s called “no-fault”!)

My many years of representing Central New York car accident victims have taught me one simple lesson: New York No-Fault Law sucks! It’s unfair and outdated and ends up screwing way too many Syracuse and Central New York auto accident victims. My partners and I can get around the limitations of the No-Fault Law as well as any New York auto injury attorneys, but sometimes even the best lawyers can’t lawyer-their-way-past the worst laws. Read what blogger Eric Turkewitz has to say about New York’s unfair No-Fault Law.

Bad, yes, but it’s the law (hopefully not for too much longer – there is a bill in the works to change it). Although you might think you are very hurt, and I might think you are very hurt, and you ARE by almost anyone’s definition very hurt, you still might not qualify as “seriously injured” under New York’s strict No-Fault Law. This is especially true for “soft tissue” and “whiplash” type injuries. Unless you are out of work for more than 90 days, these kinds of injuries usually have to be permanent to qualify as “serious”, and you still might lose your case if your doctor can’t point to any “objective medical findings” proving that the car accident caused the serious injury, and that it causes a significant limitation in the use of your neck, back, etc. (Even though the No-Fault Statute itself says nothing about “objective findings”, New York’s courts have added that requirement.)