Long Island Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Cassisi & Cassisi Law Firm : Car Accidents, Construction Injuries : New York City Metro Area

Summer is coming and with longer days and school vacations, more people will be driving.  Here are some important tips to help you have a safer driving experience.

Before driving a car, do a simple safety check. Turn on the lights and walk around the vehicle to ensure that all lights are in working order. Also check your blinkers for proper operation. Look for any fluid leaks or things hanging from the vehicle. Check that the tires are properly inflated.

 Drive with your headlights on, a car is visible for nearly 4 times the distance with its headlights on even during daytime hours.

 When stopping at a stop sign, be sure to feel the car rock backward and spell S-T-O-P to yourself before proceeding. Always turn your head to look left, then right, straight ahead, then left again before proceeding.

Expect the other drivers to make mistakes and think what you would do if a mistake does happen. For example, do not assume that a vehicle coming to a stop sign is going to stop. Be ready to react if it does not stop. 

 When you re-fuel, check your oil and other fluid levels. Look for noticeable leaks throughout the engine compartment.

 When traveling behind other vehicles, there should be at least a 4 second space between your vehicles. When the car in front of you passes a stationary object, slowly count to yourself. If you pass the object before the allotted time, you should back off. When traveling at night or inclement weather, these times should be doubled.

 Don't talk on a cell phone while driving. Phones detract from your ability to concentrate on the road and increase your chance of a collision. If you must use the phone, pull over to a safe, well-lit parking lot and place your call there.

 When leaving for an out of town trip, give an itinerary to someone back at home with the route of travel, approximate time of arrival and a contact number at your destination.  If you deviate from this inform your at-home contact. If you are traveling a long distance, check in throughout the trip with current location and any changes in your route or times. If something were to happen, this information may be used to narrow the search.

 As your speed increases so does your braking distance. If you double your speed, you quadruple your braking distance. If you double the weight of your vehicle, you double the stopping distance.

Carry in your vehicle, in an easy to find place, all contact numbers that you may need as well as Emergency contact information, personal information and any outstanding medical needs that you may have.

If you would like a free Auto File to help you organize important information for your car, please call or email us with your contact information and we will send it to you.

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Hospitals are supposed to be places where people get well. Unfortunately, hospitals are sometimes places where injuries occur. New York State’s three largest medical insurers – Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Oxford and HIP - now want to stop paying hospitals when preventable adverse events or malpractice occur. The insurers plan to implement language in their policies prohibiting the hospital from billing the carrier for the subsequent treatment required as a result of hospital errors. 

This is a move to lower the financial burden of health care insurers – who eventually pass the costs on to their insured. Lisa Greiner, a spokeswoman for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield confirmed in a Long Island Business News article in the March 21, 2008 edition, that the insurer is working with physicians and hospitals to identify preventable adverse events. The rub comes from the definition of a “preventable adverse event”. Beginning in October 2008, Medicare will no longer reimburse hospitals for care related to eight different errors occurring during the patient’s stay. 

 Is it an attempt by insurers to help improve the quality of care at hospitals or a way to reduce their costs? The answer is probably both.  

Some of the errors Insurers have identified as preventable include:

·         Incompatible blood transfusion

·         An object left in a patient after surgery

·         Air embolisms

Many hospitals no longer bill insurers for obvious and serious preventable errors such as performing surgery on the wrong patient or the wrong body part.

If the measure by the insurance companies improves the quality of care for patients by making hospitals more diligent about error prevention, because they won’t get reimbursed for their liability by the insurance company, the measure is a good one. However, if it increases the financial burden on hospitals, it will not be good for hospitals. Doctors are increasingly leery of things that are couched in quality and safety and really amount to nothing more than cost-cutting.

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The New York State’s highest court recently ruled in favor of a dog owner upholding the state’s venerable “one-bite rule”. Here’s what happened and what you need to know if you or someone you know is injured by a dog bite.

A Labrador mix Scooter bit an 8 year old girl in a Bridgehampton toy store in 2003 and the girl need more than 40 stitches. The girl’s parents promptly filed suit against the dog owner. The defense proved during trial that Scooter had never behaved viciously before. The dog’s owner was found not to be liable for damages to the girl because he did not have any prior notice or knowledge of the dog’s vicious propensities. In New York State there is a 180 year old body of common law that suggests owners are not liable in animal attacks as long as their pets had never behaved aggressively in the past. The victim’s attorney challenged the law saying the court failed to protect New Yorkers by refusing to overrule and reverse an old rule that leaves children and adults at risk. 

The court upheld the law that says as long as your dog hasn’t bit, lunged, growled at or jumped on people before the owner is not liable. The result, dogs essentially get “one free bite”. 

What it comes down to for people who have been injured by a dog bite, is having an experienced attorney who can deeply and thoroughly investigate the dog and it’s owners past history to frame for the court sufficient evidence to prove liability.

To learn more about what to do in the event of dog bites, listen to Frank Cassisi’s pod cast on dog bites. 

www.cassisilaw.com/2008/01/articles/podcasts-1/podcast-dog-bites-and-undocumented-workers-rights/

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