Albany personal injury and criminal defense law blog

If a New York resident is injured in a car, truck or motorcycle accident caused by someone else's negligent behavior, they may have been told by loved ones to file a lawsuit against the responsible party. However, not many know what a personal injury suit is and the basics surrounding it.

Filing a personal injury lawsuit is one way to protect one's rights after becoming injured in a crash or through some other incident, such as slipping and falling in someone else's premises. When someone else is responsible for causing that harm, the accident victim can try to hold him or her legally responsible for their behavior by establishing their fault in the incident in question.

The last time New Yorkers saw the Mets win the World Series Championships was in 1986, and many may remember Dwight Gooden as the hero pitcher who got them there. Unfortunately, his drug troubles drove him out of the career that got him into the Hall of Fame and made him a household name many years ago.

According to the ex-pitcher, he missed the 1986 World Series parade because he was doing drugs at the time. He tested positive for cocaine before the 1987 season and also the 1994 one. He was suspended for the whole season in 1995 for failing a drug test. He violated his probation in 2006 and also arrived to meet his probation officer high, for which he served time in prison.

For years, New York residents, like their counterparts across the country, have probably been under the impression that the best way to avoid auto accident injuries is to sit in the back seat. The back of the car is occupied more often, as older adults who have given up driving are more likely to sit there, as are Uber and Lyft passengers. However, improving technology and new research has demonstrated that the back of the car may not be as safe as it was once thought to be.

According to researchers, seatbelts in the back seat do not have load limiters. This means they cannot loosen up. Therefore, in a frontal car accident, the seatbelt is likely to injure passengers. It can cause spinal, back and abdominal injuries, regardless of the age of the occupant. Better technology is already combatting this problem, as seatbelts can now tighten as the car feels a crash is about to happen or loosen up if the passenger is pressing against it so hard that the belt itself might cause an injury. These new developments have not been translated into the backseat, which is why many experts are recommending older passengers sit in the front instead. This does not mean that passengers should skip wearing a seatbelt, as the dangers of not wearing one severely outweigh the risks of wearing one.

In New York, you need auto insurance to drive legally. This might lead you to think that the guilty driver’s insurance would cover your bills if you got into an accident, but the numbers don’t always support that assumption.

New York law says that drivers need insurance worth $25,000 for body injury. It also demands that you carry $50,000 coverage for accidents that injure two or more people. But these amounts fall well below the average cost of hospitalization. According to the New York Department of Health, Albany County drivers sent to the hospital faced an average medical bill of $74,092.