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Articles Tagged with Car accident

Sometimes it is immediately clear who caused a crash, like when a tractor-trailer driver falls asleep at the wheel, crosses into oncoming traffic and smashes headlong into a car. Or, when a driver is busy texting and fails to notice a stop sign, plowing into a left-turning motorcycle. Sometimes, however, fault is a little harder to find, at least at first glance, yet this does not mean that the family members of those killed in fatal car accidents shouldn’t work with a wrongful death lawyer to file a lawsuit.

And that may be what the family of a woman who is believed to have been killed in a North Syracuse car crash will do once it is a bit more clear as to whose fault the accident was.

Although the North Syracuse police are saying that one of the vehicles involved in this two-car crash ran a red light, officers have not yet said if it was the minivan in which the woman was riding or an SUV.

What some people may not realize is that when a car accident happens, there doesn’t have to be two cars involved to file a personal injury lawsuit. Passengers can also sue the drivers of the vehicles they are in if they suffer serious injuries in a car accident. Just like with other motorists on the road, the driver is responsible for doing everything possible to prevent a crash.

Unfortunately, many drivers don’t take this responsibility seriously and will drive recklessly with passengers in the car. If they cause a crash, they can then be held liable for any injuries, lost wages, pain and suffering and more the passenger may experience. Moreover, a driver may need to pay surviving family members if he or she causes a fatal motor vehicle crash.

At the end of last month, a driver was apparently driving recklessly when he lost control of his vehicle and smashed into a utility pole in the town of Maine in Broome County. His passenger was seriously injured and admitted to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver was killed in the accident.

Anyone in Syracuse who has tried interacting with pregnant women likely knows about “pregnancy brain.” Though not all women have trouble concentrating while pregnant, a number of women find it harder to think through things than when they weren’t pregnant. At least one author of a recent study thinks that may be why women in their second trimester of pregnancy are at a great risk of a car accident. If it is true that pregnancy brain is one of the major contributors to that increase in crashes, it is just further proof that distractions are dangerous behind the wheel.

We have talked quite extensively about how important it is to pay attention to the road. We have explained that distractions are not just caused by cellphones and smartphones, but by anything that takes the driver’s mind off of the road. It takes a considerable amount of brain power and concentration to drive safely, so the study’s author’s theory makes some sense that women with pregnancy brain are at greater risk of accident.

Granted, pregnant women are not choosing to be distracted, whereas individuals who eat, text, talk on the phone or put on makeup while driving are. The second group should know that their actions are putting people at risk, including themselves. While this study will hopefully encourage pregnant women in their second trimesters to drive more carefully, being pregnant may not be a sign of negligent driving like texting behind the wheel is.

Though many people in Oneida County may assume that the only way to file a personal injury lawsuit in a car accident is when there are at least two cars involved, they are wrong. Say you are riding in a car and someone else is driving. If that driver is texting, is drunk or is otherwise negligent and causes an accident, you can file a personal injury lawsuit. It does not matter how many vehicles are involved, so long as there is a negligent driver.

It is a driver’s responsibility to avoid an accident and to not cause serious injuries. Although the assumption is that he or she needs to avoid injuring other drivers, bicyclists, motorcyclists or really anyone else on the road, it actually means that he or she needs to avoid injuring anyone, including his or her own passengers. If an accident happens and it is the fault of the driver, he or she could be found liable.

Three passengers in a vehicle being driven by a 17-year-old Waterville boy may be looking into personal injury lawsuits after the teenager crashed the vehicle in which they were riding. The passengers, ranging in age from 20 to 39 years old are all from upstate New York. It is unknown how they knew the driver or why they were in the vehicle with him this weekend.

Even though marijuana is illegal in New York, there are still many people who use the drug illegally. There are some people in Syracuse who think there is no problem with marijuana use and others who believe it to be incredibly risky, yet regardless of what people think, studies have shown that marijuana in the system increases the risk of an accident. Though stoned driving may not be considered as risky as driving while intoxicated, it is still dangerous driving.

While states may have laws that punish stoned drivers, it can be hard to test for drivers who have been smoking. For one, many of them can pass the standardized road tests that many drunk people fail. Moreover, the only way to test for THC, the chemical compound in marijuana, is by administering a blood or urine test, something that is typically done hours after arrest.

Although there appears to be a lack of technology that is preventing police from nailing stoned drivers, it is important that this kind of dangerous behavior be stopped. It doesn’t matter that drunk driving increases the risk of accidents 20 times and it is only two times as high with marijuana, no one deserves to be injured on Syracuse’s streets because of a stoned driver. Fortunately, if there is an accident, a crash victim can file a lawsuit against the driver responsible.

It is vitally important that anyone on the road follows all traffic regulations. These laws are in place because they keep Syracuse drivers safe. While some people may not care if they put their lives at risk, it is more than just them who are in danger. When a driver follows too closely or fails to stop at a red light, he or she is putting everyone else on the road’s lives at risk. Though it is absolutely tragic when an accident happens because one driver just wouldn’t follow the law, an injured driver can file a personal injury lawsuit against the driver responsible for the crash.

Unfortunately, if that driver cannot be found or identified, it makes filing a personal injury lawsuit much more difficult. For a 26-year-old Syracuse man who was recently involved in a car accident, knowing who the driver was that cut him and another driver off is essential if he wants to file a personal injury lawsuit.

Following the accident, he told police that he hurt his head and he was taken to Upstate University Hospital. It is not clear how serious of a head injury he has suffered. What is clear, however, is that the accident was likely caused by the unknown third driver.

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