Motor Vehicle Accidents

Syracuse and Central New York Accident Lawyer on Frivolous Insurance Defenses

May 9, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

As a Syracuse and Central New York accident lawyer, I have had loads of experience dealing with car insurance companies and their lawyers. Here’s another example of how insurance companies and their lawyers take frivolous positions in Court that cost you, the taxpayer, money.

My client hired me to bring a Central New York car accident claim on his behalf. Here’s how his Cayuga County car accident happened: He was a passenger in his friend’s car. The friend had stopped at an intersection and was waiting for on-coming traffic to clear so he could turn left. His left blinker was on. Then, — BAM – the car was struck from behind. The driver who rear-ended them admitted to the police right on the scene that he was reading a map while driving so he did not see the stopped car.

After the insurance company refused to settle for a fair amount, I sued the rear-ending driver and his employer (he was on the job when this happened, so the employer is vicariously liable for his negligence). Since the only real disputed issue was what my clients’ extensive injuries were worth (no question about whose fault it was, right?), I made a “summary judgment motion”, that is, I asked the judge to decide, without the need for a jury trial, that the rear-ending driver was solely responsible for the collision. I made this request to the judge right after I sued the case out, and before any “depositions”. Depositions are where the lawyers get to ask the parties questions under oath about how the accident happened so they can try to prove their case, or their defense to the case. But I figured, why should we bother with all that when there was so clearly no issue of whose fault it was?

Recent Syracuse Bicycle Accident Demonstrates Why Motorists Are Usually At Fault for Bike-on-Car Collisions

May 2, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

It’s to be expected. With the good weather comes bicycling, and with bicycling comes bike accidents. Today Syracuse police are investigating an accident at the intersection of Sumner and Euclid avenues (not far from where I grew up!) between a bicyclist and, of all people, a Syracuse City cop driving a police car. Thankfully, the bicyclist, a Syracuse University student, suffered only minor injuries. She was treated and promptly released from Upstate University Hospital.

This accident demonstrates some interesting principles. Statistically, most bike-on-car collisions are the motorist’s fault. Do you think this accident might have been the police officer’s fault? Let’s see what happened here, and then you decide.

The police officer was heading west on Euclid Ave, and was waiting to turn left on Sumner, when a Centro bus heading in the opposite direction stopped and waved the officer through the intersection. The officer started his turn, but neither he, nor the bus driver, had observed the bicyclist traveling alongside the bus just to its right in a bike path. As the bike entered the intersection, the bike hit the police car’s passenger side as the car made its left turn in front of the bike.

Texting and Cell-phoning While Driving in Syracuse New York Leads to Many Tickets and Possible Syracuse Car Accident Lawsuits

May 1, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

I recently blogged about an upcoming federally funded crackdown on cell-phoning and texting while driving that was to take place in Syracuse. Well, the first stage of the crackdown happened, and many motorists were caught in the police net.

The Syracuse Post Standard reports that local law enforcement agents issued a total of more than 2,000 tickets during the 10-day (April 8 through 18) texting-and-phoning-while-driving ticket-issuing spree. The penalty if you plead guilty? Up to a $150 fine plus an $80 surcharge, for a grand total of $230.

Watch out! There are two more texting and phoning-while driving crackdowns scheduled for the last week of July and starting October 7.

Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Delivers Good News / Bad News about 2009 Decline in Mortorcycle Deaths In Central New York and U.S.A.

April 23, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

So what do you want to hear first, the good news or the bad news?

The good news came out just the other day from the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) about Motorcycle deaths in Central New York and, in fact, all over the nation. For more than a decade, motorcycle accident deaths had been climbing steadily, year after year. Then suddenly, in 2009, motorcycle deaths plummeted throughout the U.S by a total of 16%, which saved a total of 530 lives. The highest motorcycle accident death toll ever was the prior year, 2008, which took 5,290 lives.

Why? To what do the experts attribute such a dramatic decline? Are motorists finally SEEING motorcycles? Are motorcycle safety campaigns finally working? Are bikes just safer?

Syracuse New York Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice Lawyer on How to Change the Law

April 18, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

The other day a fellow Central New York injury lawyer congratulated me on a recent Court victory I had, which changed the law throughout New York State, and helped him, and other New York personal injury and medical malpractice lawyers, better represent their clients. The case he was referring to was Thompson v Mather, which I have already blogged about. He pointed out to me that this was the second time he had seen me change the law for the better in New York State by winning a key appellate argument for New York personal injury and medical malpractice victims. He remembered that I had, a few years ago, stopped no-fault insurance companies from denying coverage for medical bills when the insured had reached “maximum medical improvement” in a case called Hobby v CNA. The lawyer wanted to know how I was able to effect such big changes in the law with my cases.

My response was simple: I read the statutes. And I read them carefully. And I read them over and over again, word for word, looking for hidden or perhaps even obvious meanings that everyone else has been overlooking. In both cases this lawyer was referring to, all the case law generated by other lawyers had overlooked the fact that the controlling statutes just did not allow insurance companies to do what they had been doing. In Thompson v Mather, the statute, CPLR 3113, when read carefully, just did not allow a non-party witness to bring in a lawyer (usually an insurance company lawyer) to object to questioning at a deposition. It said that deposition questioning was to proceed just like at trial, and at trial non-party witnesses’ lawyers can’t object or talk at all. And in Hobby v CNA, the statute at issue, New York Insurance Law 5102, just did not allow a no-fault insurance carrier to cut off an insured’s medical treatment based on a finding of “maximum medical improvement”. It only allowed them to cut an insured off if the treatment was not “reasonable and necessary”, which is not quite the same thing.

So while other lawyers had, for decades, overlooked these nuances, and just assumed that the common practice of insurance carriers and other lawyers comported with the law, I actually READ THE LAW, and found out that everyone else was wrong!

Cell-Phone-While-Driving Crackdown in Syracuse May Reduce Car Accidents, Says Central New York Injuy Lawyer

April 8, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

It’s no secret that cell-phoning and texting while driving cause many car accidents in Syracuse, New York (and elsewhere). Just read any newspaper; many Syracuse and Central New York auto crash injuries are caused by cell-phone use and texting. But would an aggressive cell-phone driver crackdown by police help cure Syracuse drivers’ bad habits?

We’ll soon find out. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Gov. David Paterson, speaking at Syracuse University campus, announced that Syracuse will receive a $300,000 grant for cracking down on distracted drivers using cell phones. With this grant money, police will aggressively seek out and ticket hand-held cell-phone users. If they are seen with a cell phone in one hand, they’ll get a ticket in the other! The grant will pay for local law enforcement agents to work overtime, targeting distracted drivers. The money will also be used for a paid advertising campaign on radio, TV and in print ads.

This distracted-driver crackdown program is modeled on past programs to curb drunk driving and to convince people to wear seat belts, Those campaigns worked; they resulted in fewer drunk drivers and greater seatbelt use.

Central New York Injury Lawyer: More on The New York State Thruway Dump Truck Crash

April 8, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

I blogged yesterday about a horrendous New York State Thruway accident near Manchester, New York injuring 17 people, most of them children. Here’s a brief recap: A dump truck driver tried to drive under the County Route 7 overpass with his truck box raised, causing the top of the truck box to strike the overpass, which in turn caused the box to dislodge from the truck, and land on the Thruway, where two vehicles full of people, mostly children, crashed into it. I said then that the dump truck driver was obviously at fault because he either “drove the truck without noticing that his truck box was raised, or else he thought he could pass through the underpass with it raised” and that either way he was liable.

I was right. Today the State Police issued the driver a ticket for driving the dump truck without a tilt-bed warning light that would have alerted the driver that his box was raised. Apparently, he did not realize it was raised. The warning light would have warned him. He broke the law by driving a dump truck without the warning light. He appears, therefore, to be at fault for this multi-car accident..

As I said in yesterday’s blog post, this is good news for all the very injured, some very young, car accident victims because the construction company the dump truck driver was working for will also be held liable for the car crash injuries he caused. The construction company will likely have a big insurance policy to compensate these serious car crash injuries.

Manchester, Ontario County New York State Thruway Auto Accident Victims Will Likely Have Plenty of Insurance Coverage

April 7, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

When I read about the terrible New York State Thruway multi-vehicle accident at 5:00 a.m. this morning in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, near my home in Geneva, New York, the human injury toll shocked and saddened me.

Here’s how it happened: A dump truck driver, who was performing some construction work on the Thruway, tried to drive under the County Route 7 overpass eastbound with his truck box raised. Unfortunately, the top of the truck box was higher than the overpass, so it struck the overpass, dislodged from the truck, and landed on the roadway.

A few minutes later, a passenger van, carrying two adults and eight children, tried to avoid the box, but sideswiped it instead, causing an accident. Moments later, an SUV, carrying three adults and four children, ran over the box, causing a second accident. It was still dark out, so apparently the box lying in the roadway was not very visible. Two of the children were airlifted to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, and the others were brought by ambulance to other nearby hospitals.

Syracuse Motorcycle Accident Lawyer: Another Motorcycle Fatality in Central New York This Weekend

April 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

In my last post, I neglected to note another Central New York motorcycle accident his weekend. A Madison County motorcyclist was killed in the evening of April 3 at about 6:30 when he crashed on Gorge Road, part of Route 13, in Cazenovia,. He failed to handle a curve, crossed the road, struck some guiderails and was ejected. He died later at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. He was riding with other bikers. Again, this Central New York motorcycle fatality happened in broad daylight in beautiful spring weather. Don’t assume the good weather makes driving safer. It can make it more dangerous if you let down your guard.

Central New York Motorcycle and Car Accidents in This Perfect Central New York Spring Weather.

April 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Wow. What a bad weekend for motor vehicle collisions this beautiful Easter weekend in Central New York State.

First, in the morning of April 3, a Yates County New York car driver died, and his passenger, an Oswego county New York man, was seriously injured, when their vehicle drifted off the Thruway and flipped onto its side near Elbridge, New York. It appears the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Then, later that same day, in the evening, at about 6 p.m., a Central New York motorcyclist accident took place when a motorcycle hit a traffic island on State Route 3 near Oneida Street in Fulton. The biker was thrown from his bike and suffered back, chest and head injuries.