bus accidents

Syracuse NY Personal Injury Lawyer on Car Insurance

March 9, 2023 | by Michael Bersani

Hello blog readers! Today I’m blogging about car insurance. As a Syracuse and Central New York personal injury lawyer, this is something I know a lot about, and which I think many people need to learn more about.

Let’s start with the obvious: Car insurance provides financial protection against accidents that might arise while driving your vehicle. Less obvious: It also protects you and your family when you are pedestrians or in other people’s vehicles, but I’ll get to that later.

In New York, auto liability insurance is legally required. Specifically, you must have at least $25,000 to cover a victim of your negligent driving, and $50,000 coverage total if there is more than one victim. Further, New York auto insurance polices feature a minimum of $50,000 in “no-fault” coverage, which pays medical bills and lost income for those occupants of your vehicle who were injured (including yourself), and for any pedestrian you injured.

MICHAELS & SMOLAK HAS CHANGED! (and other news)

January 14, 2023 | by Michael Bersani

It’s been quite a while since this Central New York Injury Law blogger has posted anything. In fact, almost a year. It was a busy year and blogging gave way to serving our clients’ pressing needs, always our number 1 priority. But to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger (sort of), “we’re back!” And with lots of news:

News Item Number 1: “Michaels & Smolak” is no longer (sigh). Jan Smolak, one of our four lawyers, left the firm to go join his lawyer-wife’s practice, Perotto Law, in Rochester, New York. We wish Jan luck!

News Item Number 2: The other three “Michaels & Smolak” lawyers, Lee Michaels, Mike Bersani, and Dave Kalabanka. have remained right here in the same office in Auburn New York, but are now operating under the name “Michaels Bersani Kalabanka, P.C.”. Yeah, I know, that’s quite a mouthful, which is why we prefer to call ourselves “MBK Law”. Our new website is MBK-LAW.com

Syracuse NY Injury Lawyer to Drivers Who Illegally Pass School Buses: “Smile, you’re on Camera”!

September 20, 2019 | by Michael Bersani

Now that the new school year has begun, here’s a mind-blowing statistic for New York State parents to worry about: 50,000 drivers a day in New York illegally pass stopped school buses. And by “stopped” I mean with lights flashing and stop sign extended. I have actually witnessed this happen myself. Do I sound like an old fogy if I say that drivers used to respect stopped school buses?

Maybe, but I’m not the only old fogy out there. Just talk to any veteran school bus driver. They’ll tell you that “back in the day” people respected stopped school buses as almost sacred. One of them, A North Syracuse Central School bus driver, was interviewed last year in the Syracuse Post Standard. She complained that she was seeing not just a few, but many motorists, on a daily basis, illegally passing her bus with its lights on. She eventually took matters into her own hands; she no longer allows children to cross until she has personally checked to see if traffic is approaching. She no longer trusts motorists to stop for her bus’ flashing lights and extended stop sign! Now isn’t that sad?

Check out this video that went viral a few years ago. It shows a car in New York passing a stopped school bus and narrowly missing a child: