Today we're going to be talking about dangerous intersections and in particular, intersections that are dangerous to pedestrians at crosswalks. But before we do, if you have questions or you were injured at a crosswalk, accident or otherwise injured and need some help, feel free to contact us.

We're talking about dangerous intersections, and this comes on the heels of a case that we recently resolved for a retired couple who was out to dinner one evening in Saratoga. The couple was walking home across what has subsequently come to my attention as probably one of the most dangerous intersections in the city, the intersection of Congress Street and Broadway near Congress Park in Saratoga. Why is it dangerous? Because cars turning left onto Broadway from Congo Street have a turn signal. Seems normal. At the same time, those crossing Broadway also have a walk signal and right of way.

So, when you're at a crosswalk, the "little green man", as my kids like to call it, comes up and the pedestrians go across. That leaves it to the driver to yield right away to the pedestrians. In this case, it was an early evening last summer. Our clients are returning home from dinner. They have a "green man" with a green arrow, and they start walking across Broadway. The driver of the other vehicle has a green arrow, assumes that it's safe to cross and it's distracted. What's he distracted by? It's hard to say. It could have been a cell phone, could have been the sun, it could have been a lot of things. But as most of us who ride around in vehicles these days know, many people are driving around distracted.

He makes a left-hand turn, does not see our clients who are in the middle of the crosswalk and hits them both, causing them to fly several feet in the air. One of our clients suffered a skull fracture. The other suffered a broken leg, requiring complex surgery. We were, fortunately, able to identify adequate insurance coverage, excess insurance coverage and get the case resolved favorably for the clients.

Interestingly, we were able to determine through some requests made to the city that there have been multiple accidents at that intersection. This suggests that it is a dangerous intersection, and it makes it all the more important that pedestrians who are in crosswalks pay attention to vehicles that are turning onto the main street (Broadway in this case), and that vehicles making turns against turn signals be aware that there may be pedestrians and crosswalks.

This is not only isolated to this type of intersection, and these kinds of accidents happen all the time. If you are a pedestrian who is hit by a car, there are a number of things you need to do after the accident in addition to just getting yourself help.  You'll want to obtain a police report.  You'll want the other driver to be ticketed if they fail to yield. You or your attorney will want to reach out to the District Attorney's office to make sure that the other driver is not allowed to  get away with it without having to take account for violations of the vehicle and traffic law.

You may also want to investigate whether the intersection was inherently dangerous? So there are a lot of accidents that happen here. There are a number of things that you need to do in addition to getting better. If you've been involved in a pedestrian motor vehicle accident, or if you've been hit at a crosswalk, reach out to us today.  We're happy to help.

If you have questions please feel free to contact us at the contact form on this page today.