On behalf of Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently asked that sleeping pill manufacturers lower the recommended doses. Could that help prevent impaired driving in New York City and beyond? Officials are concerned that people who take sleeping pills that contain zolpidem may experience adverse side effects even after they have had a full night’s sleep. The recommended dosage changes were prompted after driving-simulation studies were completed. Because women eliminate the drug slower than men, they may be at a higher risk of experiencing next-day impairment, which could lead to serious car accidents. “We’re particularly concerned about driving. A

A horrific crash in Brooklyn shows what can happen when drivers fail to obey traffic lights. According to the New York Post, a 21-year-old man was driving his black Acura with three friends when he ran through a red light along Avenue U around 2 a.m. and collided with a Toyota Camry carrying two people, a 26-year-old man and 24-year-old woman. The crash left the 21-year-old driver dead. The two people in the Toyota Camry were also pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. A passenger in the Acura sustained head injuries and was brought to Lutheran Medical Center to be treated. The impact

It is illegal to use a cell phone while driving in the state of New York. However, some people still choose to drive dangerously. A survey by State Farm shows that in addition to phone calls and text messages, more drivers are using their cell phones to browse the Internet while driving. After surveying nearly 1,000 drivers, the insurance provider found that 21 percent of drivers browse the Internet while driving. Young drivers are particularly prone to this habit. According to the survey, 48 percent of young drivers surf the Internet while they are driving. This trend is increasingly more common as a result of

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released new data about the number and cause of car accidents, injuries and fatalities in 2011. Overall, the report was largely a positive one, carrying good news regarding the number of car accidents and fatalities that took place last year. However, the report also contained some negative developments in the causes of motor vehicle accidents, namely, that the number of distracted-driving related crashes continued to rise. According to the NHTSA report, 32,367 people were killed in car accidents in 2011, which is a decline of 1.9 percent from the number of crash deaths in 2010 and a staggering