New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog : New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : The Grossman Law Firm : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

An intoxicated motorist who caused an accident that seriously injured three of his passengers, has been charged with DUI and leaving the scene of the crash. The driver Luis Barrera was driving on the Garden State Parkway in Eaglewood Township, when his car veered off the road, and crashed into a few trees. After the crash, Barrera got out of the vehicle, and pretended to be a witness. He then tried to flee the scene of the crash. He has been arrested and jailed. 

The passengers Ingrid Gomez Reyes, Xikun Zhu, and Walter Torres suffered serious injuries, including broken bones, and had to be admitted to a hospital in Atlantic City.

Every time injury lawyers in New Jersey feel hopeful at the declining rates of drunk driving crashes in the state, comes an accident like the one here.  Incidents like these continue to remind us that there remains a threat from those who believe they have a right to drive when they are a danger to themselves and others.

New Jersey has strong laws that hold intoxicated motorists responsible for their actions. Our dram shop liability laws allowing persons who have been injured by a drunk driver to hold the establishment that served him alcohol, liable for the injuries. We also have strong civil laws that allow victims of drunk driving crashes and families of people who are killed in such accidents to recover compensation for their losses. These help to act as a deterrent to reckless motorists.

Scott Grossman is a New Jersey drunk driving accident lawyer representing injured victims of alcohol-related car accidents in Monmouth, Bergen, Passaic and Ocean Counties, and across the state of New Jersey.

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New Jersey’s dram shop liability laws are involved in a lawsuit involving a man who was served alcohol while he was intoxicated, ended up in a fight and suffered serious brain injuries.   

The lawsuit has been filed by Louis Vozza. In June 2008, his uncle Daniel Vozza drank alcohol at one establishment, the Harley’s Irish Pub, before moving on to another one, Straphanger Saloon where he continued to drink. Then, Vozza got into a fight with the owner of the Straphanger Saloon, who was also intoxicated. During the scuffle, the bar owner apparently grabbed Vozza’s shirt, causing the man to fall on the asphalt and strike his head. Vozza suffered a serious brain injury, which has since left him mentally incapacitated. He suffers from memory loss, among other problems.  The lawsuit names the two establishments, and claims that these two served alcohol to Vozza who was “visibly intoxicated.” The owner of Harley’s Irish Pub insists that Vozza was not drunk when he left the bar on the day of the fight.

Under New Jersey dram shop laws, a drinking establishment like a restaurant, pub, club or bar may be named in a civil action, if the establishment serves a visibly drunk patron who then goes out and injures someone.  Defining whether a patron was visibly intoxicated when the establishment served him more alcohol, can be tricky. Staff members are very likely to insist that the person did not seem drunk at the time.

Unfortunately, even with these laws in place, accidents and injuries from violations of these laws, continue to occur. An establishment’s failure to serve customers and conduct business ethically can leave an innocent person injured or even dead.

Scott Grossman is a New Jersey personal injury lawyer representing injured victims of auto and truck accidents in Monmouth, Bergen, Passaic and Ocean Counties and across the state of New Jersey.

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Last month’s New England International Auto Show displayed a variety of advanced new auto safety features that don’t just minimize injuries in accidents, but also work to prevent crashes, and increase your chances of survival if you are involved in one. What’s more, many of these features are not restricted to high end luxury models, but are being introduced even in mid range and low range models.

For automakers, it makes sense to pump their vehicles with the most high-tech safety features. Surveys show that safety is one of the top most considerations for a car buyer. Even in a recession, car buyers are looking for more than seatbelts and airbags to keep them and their loved ones safe during an accident.

Newer cars are likely to come with some systems that I found have special potential in preventing accidents.

• Lane departure warnings – these sound an alarm when you are beginning to veer off your lane
• Stay in lane systems- these automatically inch the car back into the lane when you begin to veer off
• Heads up displays - these allow you to see your speedometer and gas gauge readings on an upper level display, preventing the need to take your eyes off the road
• Face recognition monitors - these monitor the position of your head while driving, and sound an alarm when you begin to nod off
• Forward collision warnings - these systems sound warnings when you get too close to the vehicle or object in front of you
• Active head restraints - these cushion the back of your head during an accident by protruding a few inches upward.

Of course more and more cars now come fitted with antilock brake systems (ABS) and electronic stability control systems. These are two of the most important collision prevention technologies you could have in your car.  With automakers focusing extra hard on safety, I am confident that the nationwide decline in crash fatality rates will continue over the next few years

Scott Grossman is a Monmouth County auto accident lawyer, representing injured victims of auto accidents in Freehold, Marlboro, Aberdeen, Howell, and across Monmouth County.

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A new law will require all occupants of a vehicle in New Jersey to buckle up. As a New Jersey auto accident lawyer, I am pleased with the law which is the latest one in a series designed to protect New Jersey motorists in the event of accidents. However, it would have been even more encouraging if the law had been signed in with primary enforcement. Currently, the bill comes with secondary enforcement, which means that police must first stop the vehicle for another offense, before handing out a ticket for failure to buckle up.

Rear seat passengers are at a grave risk of injury not just to themselves, but also other passengers in the event of accidents. The impact of an accident can throw back seat passengers against the other occupants of the vehicle, causing them serious injuries, not to mention the injuries to the rear seat passenger themselves.

As a New Jersey car accident lawyer, I would like to see buckling up become a habit for all motor vehicle occupants. You can’t overestimate the kind of protection being in a properly fitted seatbelt can offer during an accident. Along with airbags, seatbelts have been responsible for saving thousand of lives over the years. However, back seat passengers have traditionally had a much lower rate of buckling up than drivers or front seat passengers. This places them at a higher risk of injuries.  Hopefully, this new law will help make buckling up in the backseat as common and widespread as wearing seatbelts in the front seat.

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A highway safety group has awarded top marks to the state of New Jersey for its adoption of highway safety laws that can prevent injuries and minimize fatalities in accidents.

The group Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety has released its 7^th Annual Road Map to State Highway Safety Laws report. The group reviewed 15 basic laws that will contribute to a reduction in fatalities and injuries in highway accidents. All 50 states and the District of Columbia were reviewed based on whether they have adopted all these laws.

States were awarded credits, and given a rating of green, yellow and red. Green signifies that the state has sufficient basic laws in place to prevent highway deaths and injuries, while yellow signifies that the state still has to make more progress, and a red rating denotes failure to adopt basic safety laws that continue to place citizens in danger.

New Jersey, I was very encouraged to note, received 13 credits, the highest among all states.  Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety has some recommendations to further bring down fatality rates and injuries in the state. The group recommends nighttime restrictions and between 30 and 50 hours of supervised driving for GDL holders. It also recommends ignition interlock laws for all DUI offenders in order to minimize drunk driving accident fatalities in the state. The group recommends these devices for all offenders, including first time offenders.

As a Bergen County auto accident lawyer, I have been a strong supporter of ignition interlock laws because of their potential for preventing repeat drunk driving. Too many DUI offenders in New Jersey are able to get back behind the wheel in an intoxicated state, posing a serious danger to other motorists on the road. With an interlock device on all their vehicles, such motorists could be kept off the streets.

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As a New Jersey auto accident lawyer, my days are busy meeting victims of auto and truck accidents in our state, and helping them find the help and resources they need moving forward. That’s why it’s very encouraging when I come across some good news on the New Jersey traffic safety scene. This New Year’s, the state recorded a potential first - the absence of a single traffic fatality over the New Year’s holiday period. State police believe this is probably the first fatality-free holiday on record, since record keeping began in 1996.

My thoughts and prayers continue to be with those who were involved in accidents over the New Year holiday period. Many of these were the victims of drunk driving accidents caused by the intoxicated drivers who flood New Jersey’s streets every New Year’s eve. Unfortunately, the start of 2010 for many New Jerseyans coincides with one of the most traumatic times of their lives. Injuries and fatalities are common during this period, which is the most alcohol-heavy holiday of the year.

While state troopers increase patrolling efforts, there are always going to be more than a few drunk drivers and speeders. The high use of Twitter in New Jersey has also helped intoxicated motorists warn each other of upcoming sobriety checkpoints. Twitter allows you to post short messages that are meant to go out to those in your network. Every time a drunk motorist comes up on a sobriety checkpoint, he tweets about it or sends out a message to his friends, allowing them to take another route and avoid the checkpoint.

Scott Grossman is a New Jersey auto accident lawyer, representing injured victims of auto accidents in Monmouth, Bergen, Passaic and Bergen Counties and across the state of New Jersey.

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Even with New Jersey’s ban on text messaging in place, personal injury lawyers here continue to see several accidents every year caused by motorists texting at the wheel. Many of these accidents are fatal, and most result in serious injuries.

Yet, automakers seem not to have taken notice of these dangers and the severe risks that come with using a cell phone behind the wheel. Many of them are going ahead to introduce infotainment systems in their cars due to roll out this year. These systems include monitors that display everything from fuel levels and the name of the song being played, to restaurant reviews and even website pages. All of these will be available through monitors mounted on dashboards.

The outcry against distracted driving has never been stronger since our lives were invaded by cell phones, than right now. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood began 2010 promising stronger legislative action to ban text messaging while driving. Several states including Kansas and South Carolina are in line to pass their own bans on cell phone use while driving. New Jersey in fact, has a proposed rule that would disallow the use of GPS systems in a moving car. President Obama last year banned the use of cell phones by federal employees driving government-issued vehicles.

As we make more and more progress in reducing the accident risks from cell phone use, it is extremely frustrating to read about these new infotainment systems.  Automakers insist that the more distracting functions that require concentration, like accessing a website, will be only allowed when the car is in park mode. However, reading restaurant reviews, 3-D maps - all of this will be allowed when the car is in motion. At a time when New Jersey auto accident lawyers have been joining hands with legislators and safety groups to reduce the risk from distracted driving, it’s hard to understand why automakers would amp their vehicles with all these distractions. It seems that greed has taken precedence over motorist safety here.

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Tis the season of good cheer, mistletoe and unfortunately, also a heightened risk of auto accidents in New Jersey. Our state’s already congested highways and roads will play host to an increasing number of intoxicated drivers, especially as the end of the year, nears.

Law enforcement in New Jersey however, will not be waiting till the Christmas Eve to make sure that drivers are aware of the state’s zero tolerance policy toward drunk driving. The annual anti-drunk driving “Over the Limit. Under Arrest” campaign kicked off on the 7^th of December. The campaign will run through the 3^rd of January next year, with hundreds of saturation patrols and DUI checkpoints across the state.

What has always impressed me as a New Jersey drunk driving accident lawyer is that this campaign does not focus only on enforcement activities, but also combines education and awareness initiatives. Across New Jersey, there will be mobile display signs, anti drunk driving posters and banners to alert drivers to the dangers of drunk driving. According to Pam Fischer, who is the director of the New Jersey Division of Traffic Safety, drunk driving increases by nearly 10 percent during the December holiday season.

As a New Jersey personal injury lawyer, I can’t stress the following enough, as you get in to the holiday mood.

• If you intend to spend an evening out drinking, plan how you will get home ahead of time. This can include

1. Having a friend drive you home
2. Hiring a cab
3. Using mass transit to get home
4. Hiring one of the designated driver services that have been cropping up all across New Jersey. Look these up on the internet to find a designated driving service close to you.

• If you are going to be partying someone’s place, see if you can spend the night over to sleep off the alcohol before you get back home
• If you see a drunk driver on the streets, report it immediately. You just might save someone’s life.

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New Jersey, like most of the rest of the country, has seen a drop in the numbers of drunk driving accident fatalities on its streets every year. However, there still continue to be far too many drivers on the streets driving under the influence, in spite of the prospect of fines, jail time or license suspensions.

Between July 2008 and July 2009, police arrested 37,597 people for drunk driving in the state. According to the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety, 151 people died in drunk driving accidents last year.

One of the measures that experts suggest to avoid driving under the influence - and one that New Jersey auto accident lawyers strongly support - is to have a designated driver, when you go out in a group. Unfortunately, that idea doesn’t always work the way it’s meant to. Designated drivers may find it hard to keep off the drinks themselves, thereby placing themselves and the passengers who trust them, at risk of an accident.  

Enter a designated driver service. These services are not unheard of in New Jersey. But as this feature report shows,  in some places in South Jersey, where finding a cab at night may be next to impossible, a designated driver service is the only thing standing between an intoxicated patron and a serious accident.  For instance, Camden County, and Cherry Hill in particular, seem to have large rates of drunk driving accidents.  Asking a drunk motorist to take a cab home doesn’t work, because it might take hours before a cab shows up outside a bar. A designated driver service, on the other hand, will drive you home in your own car for a fee.  Another car follows your car, picking up the designated driver to take him back.

As a New Jersey auto accident attorney, I support any measures that can prevent motorists from being drunk and behind the wheel. We lose too many of our citizens ever year to drunk drivers, and if we can keep at least a few of these motorists away from the wheel even for a single night, it could mean the difference between life and death for innocent motorists out there.

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The death of a man in a car accident in 2006 on the New Jersey Turnpike focused attention on the guardrail that caused his fatal injuries. However, three years after the accident, there have been no changes made to the guardrail which continues to remain an injury risk.

In August 2006, 34-year-old Patrick Sweeney was riding a car on his way to Newark airport. On the Turnpike near route 80, the driver lost control of the vehicle, and it crashed into a guardrail. Sweeney sustained fatal injuries when the guardrail pierced the passenger side of the car.

His family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the contractor involved in the road construction, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and others.   They have now settled their lawsuit for 9.7 million dollars.  Their attorney says that the guardrail was installed too close to the road, and on top of a high curb that increases the risk of injury. Three years after the fatal accident that killed Patrick Sweeney, there have been no changes made to the guardrail.

Many times, dangerous conditions for a driver are created not so much by the negligence of other motorists, as by the poor design of the highway. Highway design and construction is a complex process that must include safety of all users of the road. There could be any number of ways a highway design defect could increase the risk of accidents.

• Sharp curves
• Absence of guardrails
• Improperly installed guardrails
• Obstruction of motorist view
• Road surfaces that contribute to skidding, lack of adequate lighting, lack of warning signs.

Any one of these defects can lead to accidents.  In such cases, victims may be able to hold construction companies, contractors, agencies responsible for the highway or other local agencies, utility companies, and maintenance companies responsible for these injuries.

Scott Grossman is a New Jersey wrongful death  lawyer representing injured victims of auto accidents in Monmouth, Bergen, Passaic and Ocean Counties, and across the state of New Jersey.

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We all know that drinking and driving often results in death, serious injury or the destruction of life.  A recent local news story reported an accident in South Jersey recently sent several innocent grocery shoppers to the hospital. A car spun out of control and slammed into 3 people - two of them were in wheelchairs. The police are saying the driver was intoxicated when she crashed into pedestrians on a Shoprite sidewalk in front of the store.

 As a Monmouth County and New Jersey car accident attorney I have represented hundreds of victims that suffered critical injuries because of alcohol related car accidents.  This news story above highlights a all too common scenario whereby alcohol appears to have impaired this driver’s sense of judgment. The alleged intoxicated driver may have destroyed the lives of these innocent grocery shoppers who never would have imagined that they would fall victim to a drunk driver while going through their normal every day routine of pushing their grocery carts at their local supermarket.  Drinking and driving frequently leads to victim's extreme suffering.  I have witnessed first hand clients that have suffered at the hands of drunk drivers’ : traumatic brain injury, loss of limbs, spinal cord injuries including paralysis fractures, herniated disc injuries leading to spinal fusion or inter-body fusion surgery and a myriad of other life altering injuries and even death.  So as a seasoned New Jersey and Monmouth County accident attorney lawyer I can attest unequivocally that alcohol mixed with driving of motor vehicles, motorcycles or trucks many times equates with the total destruction of innocent life and also destroys both individuals and their families.  We can significantly reduce the number of serious injuries and fatalities in New Jersey by never ever driving while intoxicated or in any way impaired.  

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New Jersey traffic accident related fatalities have statistically decreased by 17 percent over the past 12 months however, the actual number of deaths remains at an unacceptable horrifying 207 between January 1st and May 17 of this year. These statistics were reported in a recent Today’s Sunbeam article that interviewed New Jersey State Police Colonel Rick Fuentes. Fuentes stated…“ As alcohol related crashes make up a large percentage of fatalities, the focus of our communities must be first devoted to both deterrence of drinking and driving and secondly to the enforcement of DWI related offenses. 

State Police Deputy Superintendent of Operations Juan Mattos said, "Four of the seven fatal motor vehicle accidents on Memorial Day 2007 were alcohol related. This is a pointless waste of lives we will attempt to avoid by relentlessly pursuing intoxicated drivers." Superintendent Fuentes added "We can only do so much to encourage safe behavior. In the end, New Jersey's drivers must decide to act responsibly."

As a Monmouth County and New Jersey auto accident lawyer attorney, I have witnessed over the past decade the horrific shattering of lives far too often as the direct result of alcohol consumption while driving cars, trucks and motorcycles. Obviously, we should never ever drink and drive. More safety tips can be found at The American Society of Civil Engineers link and I hope this information will be useful and if applied may even help to reduce the number of traffic related fatalities and severe injuries.

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