Verrazano narrows bridge
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A motorist required hospitalization after two vehicles collided on the Brooklyn-bound approach to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The accident happened near the Lily Pond Avenue, and Fingerboard Road exits on the Staten Island Expressway at the height of morning rush hour traffic. Officers from the NYPD, along with personnel from the FDNY and EMS. Medics transported one patient to Staten Island University Hospital, located in Ocean Breeze, according to a report on SILIVE.com. A spokesperson for FDNY and EMS was unable to describe the person’s injuries, except to say that the motorist was hospitalized. Radio communications from emergency dispatchers indicated that a pickup truck was involved in the crash along with a business van. A commercial truck was also involved, but reports did not indicate what role either vehicle played in the accident. The details concerning why the accident happened were not disclosed.
The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, completed a study of side-impact motor vehicle crashes. Researchers analyzed the effects a side-impact crash has on the occupants of a vehicle based on where the accident victims were seated in the car at the time of the crash. The researchers were specifically interested in the severity of injuries sustained by adult passengers in the backseat.
The researchers focused their analysis based on the premise that adults riding in the backseat of a car involved in a sideswipe or “T-bone” collision are more likely to survive if these passengers were wearing seatbelts when the collision occurred. However, the study proved that crashes into the side of the vehicle where the adult passenger is seated, and angled crashes are more likely to cause more significant injury or death to any passenger seated at the impact site even if the victim wore a seatbelt.
Although vehicle safety ratings and availability of safety equipment such as curtain airbags, an adult passenger is more likely to die or suffer a massive injury in the backseat than the front seat. The study’s authors identified ejection, the penetration of the other car, and hitting the inside of the car as the three causes of death or severe injury.
