New York City Personal Injury Law Blog

New York state has some of the toughest drunk driving laws in the country. Drivers who register a 0.08 percent or higher blood alcohol content face criminal charges. Drivers who register 0.06 percent may not face jail time, but the violation will earn them a fine and a 90-day license suspension, not to mention an insurance rate increase. So why should New York lower the legal limit to 0.05 percent, as the National Transportation Safety Board recently recommended?

The answer is simple: The lower limit will save lives. New York admitted as much when it adopted the 0.06 percent violation standard. With a blood alcohol content level of 0.05 percent, a driver's vision is impaired, his reflexes are slowed and his judgment is compromised. The upshot? He (or she) should not be driving.

At one time or another, we have all experienced "the head bob." The head bob is that moment of profound drowsiness, when you are so close to giving in to sleep that you haven't the strength to stay awake, when your lids drift closed and your chin drops to your chest -- and your eyes snap open in a panic, wondering if your math teacher, your seatmate at the opera or your father-in-law has noticed.

The head bob may be a faux pas, but it is harmless in most social -- and academic -- situations. It becomes a problem, though, if the head bobber is behind the wheel. It only takes a moment to drift into the next lane, and that snap back to reality often leads drivers to overcorrect. Remember that driver fatigue was a factor in the awful charter bus crash in the Bronx two years ago.

The attorneys for a family that is suing Toyota Motor Corp. hope that their clients' lawsuit will be among the first of hundreds to be heard, even if the action was filed just recently. The push is not entirely selfish: While the attorneys want their clients to be compensated for their terrible loss, they also believe that the facts of the case are a great example of how dangerous the sudden acceleration problem is and how Toyota's attempts to blame the problem on floor mats and sticky pedals have resulted in horror and tragedy for the victims and their families.

The case is not from New York, nor is it one of the consumer protection cases that New York and other states recently settled with Toyota. This and similar claims are for wrongful death and product liability, and in the victim's state more than 100 cases filed in the last couple of years have been assigned to one court. What the attorneys hope is that using the case as the bellwether will put the court on notice that the unintended accelerations were more than mild inconveniences.

In New York and across the country, law enforcement officers have focused on preventing dangerous motor vehicle accidents during April's Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Recently, in an effort to ensure motorists' safety in the future, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued new, voluntary guidelines for automakers across the United States.

While the car manufacturers will not be required to abide by the new guidelines, the hope is that they will take the increasing concern regarding distracted driving seriously, and choose to make their vehicles safer to prevent auto accidents.