Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents

Hey text-a-maniacs, you just got a raise! Starting yesterday, your habit will cost you five points on your license instead of three. Of course it could also cost you your life, and the lives of others.

To put this into perspective, texting while driving will now cost you as many points as driving past a stopped school bus or speeding 30 miles per hour more than the posted speed limit. It is now at the top echelon of driving offenses.

And for good reasons. Gov. Cuomo justified the new law (not that he needed to) by stating the obvious: Texting while driving is a growing problem, especially among young drivers.

We at the Michaels Bersani Kalabanka personal injury law firm know all too well how dangerous Grant Ave. (Route 5) is in Sennett, just outside of our hometown of Auburn, NY. If you don’t believe us, just google “car accident Grant Ave. Sennett New York” and look at the list of reported cases! Why so many?

Well, Grant Ave. is the main thoroughfare between Auburn and Syracuse. There’s way too much traffic, too many commercial parking lots to turn into and out from, and traffic moves way too fast. That’s a dangerous brew, but add to it the fact of life that many drivers just aren’t careful enough, and there you have the explanation.

Many of the car accident cases we handle happen right here in nearby Sennett on Grant Ave. In fact, we just settled a motorcycle-car collision case that took place on Grant Ave. at the intersection with the Wallmart parking lot.

I recently blogged about a new nationwide trend to criminalize “drowsy driving”. Caffeine-crazed prosecutors around the country are going after sleep-deprived drivers who doze off at the wheel on criminal charges including manslaughter and other serious felonies. (The prosecutorial equivalent of pouring cold water on sleepy drivers.) Could YOU end up on the receiving end of such prosecutorial zeal some day? Hey, wake up and smell the coffee — you too drive sleepy once in a while!

Yesterday, New York City prosecutors lost a nine-week multiple-manslaughter trial against a bus driver they charged with driving while drowsy. Essentially they argued that, by getting behind the wheel of the bus knowing he had not slept enough, and then causing an accident because of his sleep deprivation, he committed manslaughter and other serious crimes.

The jury disagreed. Yes, he caused one of the deadliest crashes in New York City’s history. Yes, he was probably negligent in the extreme for having driven a busload of innocent unsuspecting passengers on too little sleep. But no, he was not criminally liable.

Just read an article in the New York Times titled, “Push to Prosecute Drowsy Driving May Hinge on Its Definition“. Before I discuss this article, I need to make a confession: I’ve done it. I have driven drowsy. I’ve felt myself nodding off at the wheel. It has happened a few times in my life, and every time it scared the crap out of me. Come on, admit it — it’s happened to you, too!

Now I (and you?) could go to jail for it. According to the article, law enforcement officials are pushing State legislators to make driving-while-drowsy a crime punishable by jail time. This follows a decades-long trend toward criminalizing dangerous driving behaviors, such as drinking-while-driving, texting-while-driving and phoning-while-driving.

Until now, law enforcement has simply coaxed the sleepy driver with friendly nudges from roadside signs, such as “You Snooze, You Lose” or “Drive Alert, Arrive Alive.” Is it a good idea to up the ante, to make it a crime?

The kid standing behind me in this photo, trying his hand at hair styling, is my oldest son Sebastian. (Don’t worry – he has already ruled out hair styling as a career option.) On September 30 he will turn 16. Yesterday he announced that we are going to the DMV to take his driver’s permit test on his birthday at 9:00 a.m., and he is driving us home.

For most parents, this rite of passage is worrisome. But for a guy who represents car accident victims, and deals with clients’ terrible car wreck injuries every day of the week, it’s grueling. My hair is already grayer than it was in this photo.

It is a well known fact that car accidents are the number one cause of death for kids his age. It is not such a well known fact that sixteen year old kids driving is the number one cause of grey hair in aging fathers.