“Car Insurance Comparison” looked at:
– the rate of people who died in a car accidents per 100 million vehicle miles traveled,
– the rate of fatal car accidents with traffic safety devices involved,
40% of the people who die in a car accident in New York, are the victims of reckless and dangerous drivers. Drivers who are speeding, not yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks or being distracted while driving have killed too many people on the streets of New York City.
By showing images of grieving families at the location of the accident that killed their loved ones, the New York City Department of Transportation new ad campaign sends a very strong message to New Yorkers to stop driving dangerously to reduce the number of people dying in car accidents caused by dangerous driving.
The third New York City Summit on Pedestrian Injury was hosted Thursday by the Elmhurst Hospital Center’s Trauma and Neurosurgery Departments. Doctors, hospital administrators, transportation and traffic safety experts as well as community activists gathered together to examine pedestrian injuries and their impact on public health.
The chairs of the summit were Dr. Jamie Ullman, director of neurosurgery at Elmhurst and Anju Galer, a trauma coordinator for the nursing and the surgery departments in the same hospital. Both of them are working on a 3 years study on pedestrian injury in New York. Ullman said 2012 marked an all-time high in the number of injuries within the hospital catchment area, and in 2013, she said, it’s a trend that shows “no signs of stopping.”
Read more in Streetblog.
The car accident in which 36 year old NYPD officer Elisa Toro was killed, was “totally preventable” said State Senator Michael Gianaris. For years, Gianaris has been lobbying the city to make the Queensboro bridge exit safer to avoid additional car accidents and protect pedestrians and store owners.
He and councilman Jimmy Van Bramer wrote a new letter to the New York City Department of Transportation to urge them to redesign the ramp and to create taller barricades to protect people in adjacent streets.
A 22 year old driving a motorized scooter died after being struck by a car in Brooklyn, around 2:30 this morning. Elvis Batista-Francisco was driving his scooter through the intersection of Arlington Ave and Hyland place in Brooklyn, New York when he was struck by a dark blue Nissan according to video surveillance footage. The driver fled leaving the young man to die at the scene of the accident.
Read more in CBS News New York
Elisa Toro is the third person to die in a car accident at the exit of the Queensboro bridge in New York. Despite traffic modifications by the DOT to slow down traffic, the car of the 10 year veteran police officer ended up sideways against one of the store fronts at the bottom of the ramp. The police officer who wasn’t wearing a seat belt was killed in the accident . The Queensboro ramp is a notoriously dangerous location. Two people previously died in car accidents at that same location.
Read more in the New York Times
A 35 year old pedestrian died after being involved in a car accident as he was crossing Woodhaven Blvd at Jamaica Avenue in Queens, New York. The driver of the car left the scene of the accident without stopping. The police are looking for a white Honda sedan.
In a car crash, the probability of sustaining serious personal injury or to die is much higher for drivers and car occupants if they are older adults. The number of drivers above 65 years old increased by 20% in 10 years. During that same time, the proportion of older drivers involved in deadly car accidents increased by 15%. To curb this alarming situation the NHTSA announced a new 5-Year Traffic Safety Plan and Guidelines for Older Drivers and Passengers
A previous NHTSA analysis of the personal injuries sustained by 18,000 occupants involved in a car accident shows that drivers over 75 have a higher risk of suffering personal injury than younger drivers especially when it comes to head, chest and legs and foot injuries. Statistics also show a much higher number of head and chest injuries for older car occupants involved in a side impact accident.
Intersection accidents are the most common car accidents older drivers make. In the most common cases they don’t notice potential conflicts or traffic signs and signals.
Wrongful deaths and serious personal injuries related to traffic accidents are epidemic in New York. The newly appointed NYPD commissioner, Bill Bratton, promised that this situation would change.
In a speech Thursday Bratton said “It is ironic that even as the death totals have declined dramatically with violent crime in this city, this year the number of people killed on our streets – pedestrian and traffic — will almost equal the homicide total”.
Bratton said his priorities are to make the streets and the subways safer.
Personal injuries and wrongful deaths related to car accidents are much higher on Amsterdam Avenue in New York than on other northbound avenues on the Upper West Side according to CrashStat.Org. To protect pedestrians and bicyclists, yesterday night Community Board number 7 voted 35-0 with 5 abstentions for a resolution asking the Department of Transportation to perform a complete street study of Amsterdam Avenue with safer pedestrian crossings and a protected bike lane. (see StreetBlog.org)
Amsterdam Avenue is a four car lane avenue with synchronized lights. People driving in the city know that if they “time the lights right” they can go from 60th Street to 108th Street and hit a light just once “if they are lucky”. Therefore motorists tend to drive their car as if they were on a highway with little respect for the 30 mph speed limit. In a family friendly residential neighborhood such as the Upper West Side this situation is very unsafe and the CB7 vote indicates that locals want to change that.
Since 2008, New York City Department of Transportation has been developing a strategic plan called “Sustainable Streets” that encourages New York communities to redesign their streets to make them safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. In areas where streets have been redesigned, the number of injuries has declined and local businesses say their sales are up.
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog