Recently in Car Accidents Category

Two men were killed and four were injured when a Nissan Altima reportedly traveling at a high speed went airborne and slammed against a utility pole, the New York Daily News reported. Eyewitness Tommy Paradiso said the car was cruising at "75 or 80 miles an hour" before he saw the fatal accident unfold:

"They lost control and [the driver] swerved. He hit the curb and the car flipped over twice before it landed on the pole."

The six young men were allegedly speeding down Arthur Kill Rd. in Greenridge at about 1 am when the driver, who was not yet identified, lost control of the vehicle. The car nearly was cut in half by the impact and the two who died were thrown from their seats.

New York City Police officer Louis Ramos faces a number of charges related to a hit-and-run incident that left a bicyclist with relatively minor injuries, The New York Times reported. Specific charges include assault, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an injury accident.

While the story only mentions the criminal charges related to the hit-and-run, it's likely that the bicyclist will be (or already has been) meeting with a New York personal injury lawyer to review his legal options in civil court.

Authorities say that on June 14, in broad daylight, Louis Ramos was driving the wrong way on Jay Street in Brooklyn with his lights flashing and siren blaring. He then allegedly drove through a red light and hit the bicyclist at Sands Street.

While it may seem like most people from the Big Apple blame out of town drivers for New York car accidents, it seems like they may be wrong. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that New York drivers know the least when it comes to the rules of the road.

Now before you New Yorkers start mouthing off to your New York injury lawyer about how your car accident was not your fault, but the fault of someone from New Jersey, you may be comforted by the fact that New Jersey drivers are the second worst drivers in the nation.

It seems like there are an awful lot of unfit drivers in the U.S. in general. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, close to 20 percent of licensed drivers across the country (which make up close to 38 million drivers nationwide) may be unfit drivers. In other words, they would fail a state issued written exam if they had to take it today.

Listen up, New York injury lawyers!  Results are in for the New York Prius incident. 

As reported previously in this blog, a Harrison woman alleged unintended acceleration in her Prius, as it drove across the street and back into a stone wall. The woman claimed that the Prius accelerated on its own and she insisted that she pressed the brakes.

We reported last week that the black box-- essentially the data recorder in the Prius, was taken under investigation by both federal officials and Toyota Motor Corporation. In our earlier report, we found that there was evidence of driver error, however, that the evidence was inconclusive. 

Now, the Prius investigation results are conclusive, according to published news sources.

Is Toyota just getting awfully good at discrediting consumer complaints and reports of unintended acceleration?

They certainly did a great job of discrediting the San Diego Prius incident and the statements of driver James Sikes after his Prius accelerated out of control on a San Diego freeway.

Now, it's time for them to discredit the driver of the New York Prius that failed to brake and crashed into a stone wall across the street in Harrison, N.Y. on March 9.  

Toyota and federal authorities began investigating both cars in the incidents. Now, according to computer data from the New York Prius incident, the research is yielding that the driver never pressed the brakes.    

If you're a New York personal injury attorney, you might want to sit up and listen to the Toyota news.  After last Tuesday's widely broadcasted Prius chase and subsequent press conference in San Diego, on Wednesday came news of another runaway Prius.

This time, it was in New York.

But how could New Yorkers have heard of the local unintended acceleration incident when the San Diego Prius incident has been hogging the news?

San Diego's runaway Prius incident allegedly involved unintended acceleration; causing the California driver, online porn website owner James Sikes, to accelerate upwards of 90 miles per hour, weaving in and out of traffic with the California Highway Patrol shadowing the vehicle.

Of course, many are now shouting "Prius hoax" in the San Diego incident, citing that many of James Sikes' claims are unfounded and that the driver needed unreasonably long arms in order to grab the brake pedal and steering wheel at the same time-- a claim he allegedly made in his widely publicized press conference held a few hours after his Prius chase.   

The overlooked New York Prius incident happened in a driveway, where the driver allegedly claimed that her gas pedal became stuck.  As a result, the 56-year old housekeeper crashed the 2005 Prius into a stone wall, sustaining no injuries to herself but severe damage to the vehicle. 

My Fox New York reports that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) took a huge financial blow this week after they lost a personal injury lawsuit.

Two women, represented by their New York injury lawyer Herb Subin, were awarded $7.5 million dollars for the injuries that they suffered after the car they were riding in was struck by a city bus. 1010Wins reports that in 2005, the victims were riding in a car in the intersection of Ocean Parkway Service Road and Avenue U in Brooklyn when the car accident occurred. After the collision, My Fox New York reports that one of the victims "suffered a punctured lung, spent 16 days in the hospital, and underwent 2 surgeries."

New York injury lawyer Natascia Ayers worked with a victim of the Staten Island Ferry crash and helped that victim secure an award of over $813,000. The New York Daily News reports that her client was awarded $813,480 for the personal injuries that she suffered in the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash.

SILive reported that the crash occurred on October 15, 2003, when the Andrew J. Barberi ferryboat collided with a maintenance pier. The accident happened close to the St. George Ferry Terminal, and it left 11 people dead and dozens injured.

The New York Daily News reported that the victim claimed she was suffering from "post-concussion brain damage." One of the lawyers who was representing the city, Kenneth Sasmor, called up a medical expert who provided testimony that went against her claim. However, the jury awarded the victim for injuries that she sustained in spite of this testimony.  The injuries sustained by the victim were in "her back, arm, neck and shoulder" areas were considered in this award amount. 

Local activists are demanding harsher penalties for the officers who are arrested for a DUI and their colleagues who give them a "get out of jail free" card.