New York is the fourth most populated state in the US and New York City is the most populated metropolis in the country. In fact, New York also experiences some of the worst traffic congestion in the country, which is not that surprising, given that it is the commercial hub of America.
Unfortunately, this also has direct links to the fact that the state of New York, and New York City, in particular, is experiencing more car accidents with each passing year.
Car Accident Reports as Per the DMV
It is somewhat strange to find that the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has not updated their accident fact sheet in the last five years. Not only is that uncharacteristic of any State DMV, but it is also a particular oddity because from 1995 to 2014 (last updated), the NY DMV did keep tabs on every accident reported, without missing a single annual report. Now, one must head over to the ITSMR website and search for the data with particular details.
The Department of Heath Does Not have Updated Reports
Aside from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Health is the other government body in charge of keeping tabs on road accidents, but they only have data from 2012 to 2014. As a result of that, it is only possible to draw inference on New York’s rate of car accidents, based on outdated data.
How Likely is a Driver/Passenger to Be Injured in New York?
Although the data cannot be held as valid after almost five years, it’s still something to go by, nonetheless.
It seems that according to the last published results by the DMV in 2014, there were 299,452 car crashes in New York that year.
To provide a bit of perspective on how frequent that is, consider the fact that the numbers indicate there were 820 crashes every single day in the state that year, with one accident every two minutes, roughly.
As the number of cars on the road have only increased since then, it would not be an exaggeration to state that so have the crashes.
How to Know If a Car Accident Qualifies for Compensation?
Simply put, if the car accident was caused due to the negligence of someone or some institution, any of the parties involved in the accident are partially or completely eligible to be compensated by the guilty party.
It is not as simple as that, though, because there are various legal complexities associated with filing a successful claim that does get paid. An experienced New York City car accident attorney is the only professional capable of discerning how valid a claim is – before the decision is made in court, of course. Legal consultation before filing such a claim is strongly advised.
Increased numbers of vehicles will eventually lead to more accidents for obvious reasons in any city, so the solution perhaps lies in controlling the number of active vehicles on the street with innovative measures.
