new york truck accident

Published on: April 20, 2015

A tractor trailer truck crashed into the Memorial for Traffic fatalities in New York before it was even finished

Thankfully nobody was injured in a truck accident that happened Saturday at the site of a new Memorial for Traffic Fatalities in Brooklyn, NYC. Activists for the group Right of Way were in the process of creating a huge mural depicting the silhouettes of the 264 people who died in traffic accidents in New York in 2014 when an 18-wheeler plowed into it.

Organizer Keegan Stephan was standing closest. The crash pulled parts of the plywood fence from its frame, and he said he and other volunteers who were wheat-pasting posters down the block had to jump back to avoid being struck. The driver could have done worse. “Fortunately he just hit a wall,” Stephan said. “If someone had been standing there that person would be dead.”

Read more in the NY Daily News and in the Gothamist and see video below for more info about the accident (at 1:40 min) and about the Memorial for people killed in traffic accidents in New York City in 20014

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Published on: April 10, 2015

Southern District Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ruled Wednesday that the federal government is “100 percent liable” for a Postal Service trailer crash that killed Marilyn Dershowitz while she was riding her bicycle in New York. Our partners Ben Rubinowitz and Peter Sagir represented the Dershowitz estate

By GGCRBHS&M

Our partners, New York personal injury lawyers Ben Rubinowitz and Peter Sagir represented the family of Marilyn Dershowitz, a retired Manhattan Supreme Court special referee who died in a bicycle accident during which she was hit by a postal tractor trailer truck. Following a two-week bench trial in February U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn found the federal government 100% liable for the fatal accident in a 72 page Opinion.

The accident happened on Saturday July 2, 2011. Marylin and her husband Nathan Dershowitz of Dershowitz, Eiger & Adelson, and the brother of Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, were riding their bikes on West 29th street between Ninth and Tenth Ave in Manhattan, New York. Both were wearing a helmet. As they rode under an overpass connecting two US postal mail facilities, the road was narrowed by a protruding Postal Trailer that was perpendicularly parked at a dock. As Mrs Dershowitz was about to ride her bike in the narrower side way, just behind her another postal trailer, driven by Ian Clement, was competing with a silver minivan to get in first in the narrower roadway as due to the parallel parked trailers to the south and the protruding perpendicular Postal Trailer to the north, cars were not able to travel side-by-side. The postal trailer got in before the minivan but he didn’t see the cyclist and hit her as he was veering to the right to be able to fit into the roadway.

Southern District Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ruled Wednesday that the federal government was 100 percent liable for the accident. Netburn said “a preponderance of the credible evidence” showed that Clement’s driving and the placement of a postal trailer protruding into the street were the “sole, proximate cause of the decedent’s injuries. Mrs. Dershowitz was not contributorily negligent.”

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Published on: March 4, 2015

20 year old pedestrian dies in a truck accident in New York

By GGCRBHS&M

A tractor trailer fatally hit a young man who was crossing a street in the Bronx, NYC, Tuesday night. The truck accident happened around 10.20 pm. 20 year old Kenny Valette was crossing Webster Ave near E. 174 Street when he was struck by a large truck that was making a right turn from the Cross Bronx Expressway exit ramp. The drivers remained at the scene while Valette was transported to the hospital where he died from his injuries. Read more in the NY Daily News.

According to NYCcrashmapper.com, 1 pedestrian, 11 passengers and 3 vehicle drivers suffered personal injury in 29 collisions that took place at the intersection of East 174 street and Webster Ave between August 2011 and February 2014. As shown in the Heat map this intersection is very dangerous.

Published on: March 1, 2015

The number of pedestrians dying after being struck by a vehicle in New York City decreased by 23% in 2014 compared to 2013 while the number of cyclists killed in bicycle accidents increased by 73% for the same period according to recent NYPD statistics

By GGCRBHS&M

10 pedestrians died and 1220 suffered personal injury in traffic accidents last December bringing the total number of pedestrian deaths to 135 in 2014 compared to 168 in 2013 and 130 in 2014 according to car crashes data recently released by the NYPD. The total number of pedestrians injured in vehicle accidents for 2014 was 11,000 compared to 11,978 the previous year, a decline of 8%. While pedestrian deaths are back around the level of 2012, deaths as a result of a bicycle accident increased by 73% with 19 fatal bicycle accidents in 2014 compared to 11 in 2013. The number of people injured in a bicycle accident decreased by 2% with 3960 cyclists injured in 2014 compared to 4043 in 2014.

Globally New York City roads were less dangerous in 2014 than in 2013 with a total of 250 people dying in crashes in 2014 compared to 286 in 2013 – a decline of 12% – and 50,896 road users suffering personal injury in 2014 compared to 54,818 in 2013 – a decline of 7%.

Even though pedestrian deaths and injuries decreased in 2014, the number of pedestrians suffering personal injury in a vehicle accident was above 1200 in December, the highest monthly number for the last two years. Monthly pedestrian deaths never went over 15 in 2014, an improvement compared to 2013, a year during which the monthly number of deaths jumped to 25 in November and 20 in January.

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