Hit-and-run accidents can put victims at risk of more serious injuries because there may be delays in getting medical help for collision victims. Victims also face challenges in recovering compensation for losses resulting from hit-and-run crashes if the driver who caused the accident cannot be identified. A New York personal injury law firm can provide you with personalized advice on recovering compensation following hit-and-runs.
Because of the problems that can occur when a driver hits-and-runs or leaves the scene of a crash, hitting and running is illegal. Police should investigate crashes when drivers illegally fail to stop, and ideally hit-and-run drivers should be caught. Unfortunately, New York Daily News suggests this is not happening. The failure to effectively find and pursue legal action against motorists who leave collision scenes is said to be causing concerns about the effectiveness of the Vision Zero agenda laid out by the de Blasio administration. Vision Zero is aimed at reducing car accident deaths to zero.
A Look at the Stats
According to the New York Daily News, “hit-and-run drivers are leaving a trail of carnage on city roads, but less than half of the motorists who fled the deadly crashes have been put in cuffs.”
During the first half of 2016, there were 38 deadly collisions involving hit-and-run drivers who left the crash scene after causing a fatality to occur. However, there have been just 13 arrests. There were also 22 hit-and-run cases in which collision victims were seriously injured, but just 14 of those hit-and-run drivers were arrested.
An additional 5,006 accidents involved drivers hitting and running in crashes where people experienced some type of personal injury but not a serious one. There were only 423 arrests of drivers in these crashes that had caused more minor injuries, which means the arrest rate was just eight percent.
The low arrest rates are said to be a “blemish” in the Vision Zero agenda which the de Blasio administration has pushed in an effort to eliminate fatalities in auto accidents in New York City. One city councilman commented that people are getting away “scot-free” because of a failure to adequately investigate hit-and-run cases to find drivers. New York Daily News also interviewed victims who said their cases had fallen through the cracks, with no top investigators being sent to try to find the person who had fled after causing the collision they were involved in.
Sending out investigators from the NYPD collision investigation squad could help make it possible to catch more hit-and-run drivers, and this is the approach many are suggesting. While there are concerns that these investigators have limited time and should be working only on the most serious of crashes, most Vision Zero supporters are aggressively arguing that investigations into hit-and-runs need to get much better if the campaign to reduce or eliminate crash deaths is going to be a successful one.
Hopefully, improvements will be made in the process of investigating hit-and-runs to catch motorists. If you or someone you love is hurt or killed in a hit-and-run, you should contact Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff for help as soon as possible to find out what avenues are available to you for pursuing just compensation.
