Brooklyn New York Legal Blog

Vehicles that operate on New York roads and others throughout the country have limited autonomous capabilities. However, according to AAA, it is unlikely that there will be a truly self-driving car on the road for many years or decades to come. This is partially because Americans have many questions about how safe such a vehicle would be. A survey conducted by AAA revealed that only 12% of respondents would feel comfortable riding in a car that drove itself.

Roughly half of those who responded to the survey needed to know more about how safe such a vehicle was before they would get in one. The survey also found that roughly half of respondents said that they wanted to know if a car that drove itself could be vulnerable to hackers. Finally, many people said that it wasn't clear who would be liable in the event that a self-driving car was involved in an accident.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly one-third of motor vehicle crashes are caused by drunk or impaired drivers. Furthermore, it is estimated that one person is killed every 50 minutes in a drunk driving crash in New York or elsewhere in America. NHTSA data indicates that men are statistically more likely to cause a drunk driving crash compared to women.

Roughly a quarter of drunk driving accidents are caused by those who are under the age of 21. This is in spite of the fact that it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to consume alcohol whether they are planning on driving or not. Government data indicates that those between the ages of 21 and 24 are the most likely to drive while under the influence of alcohol. A person is considered legally drunk if he or she has a blood alcohol content higher than .08.

In a survey conducted by The Zebra, 38% of drivers aged 18 to 24 admitted to texting while on the road. The problem is clearly not a lack of education, as the overwhelming majority of drivers know that what they are doing is wrong. In New York, as elsewhere in the U.S., this means that a great many accidents are caused by drivers who never thought it could have happened to them.

There are three forms of distractions: cognitive, visual and manual. In short, the first distracts the mind, the second the eyes and the third the hands. While phone use comprises all three, something as simple as eating and drinking or changing radio stations can prove to be dangerous to drivers. The following five tips, though, can keep drivers, especially teen drivers, from falling into these dangers.

In the 1990s, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration established a five-star rating system for vehicle safety. Many drivers in New York and across the U.S. rely on this rating when purchasing a vehicle, which is why it's important to know that some experts believe the rating system needs updating. A former leader in the development of NHTSA's crash testing program published a report about this in October 2019.

The author states that the crash testing on which the rating system is based is insufficient. The federal government is lagging behind Europe, Asia and Latin America in this regard. The report states that Europe crash-tests its vehicles four times as much as the U.S. before rating their safety.