Senate Bill S6278

2023-2024 Legislative Session

Enacts the crash victims bill of rights

download bill text pdf

Sponsored By

Current Bill Status - In Senate Committee Transportation Committee

  • Introduced
    • In Committee Assembly
    • In Committee Senate
    • On Floor Calendar Assembly
    • On Floor Calendar Senate
    • Passed Assembly
    • Passed Senate
  • Delivered to Governor
  • Signed By Governor

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2023-S6278 (ACTIVE) - Details

See Assembly Version of this Bill:
A1901
Current Committee:
Senate Transportation
Law Section:
Vehicle and Traffic Law
Laws Affected:
Add §607, amd §§606 & 227, V & T L; add §202-m, Lab L
Versions Introduced in 2021-2022 Legislative Session:
S8152, A9152

2023-S6278 (ACTIVE) - Summary

Enacts the "crash victims bill of rights"; requires accident reports to be delivered to victims of accidents or their next of kin; requires victim impact statements to be delivered at traffic infraction hearings by injured parties or their next of kin; requires employers to grant leave of absence to employees delivering a victim impact statement at a traffic infraction hearing

2023-S6278 (ACTIVE) - Sponsor Memo

2023-S6278 (ACTIVE) - Bill Text download pdf 

                             
                     S T A T E   O F   N E W   Y O R K
 ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                   6278
 
                        2023-2024 Regular Sessions
 
                             I N  S E N A T E
 
                              April 11, 2023
                                ___________
 
 Introduced  by  Sens. HOYLMAN-SIGAL, BAILEY, BRISPORT, CLEARE, GIANARIS,
   MAY, MAYER, MYRIE, SEPULVEDA, THOMAS -- read twice and ordered  print-
   ed,  and  when printed to be committed to the Committee on Transporta-
   tion
 
 AN ACT to amend the vehicle and  traffic  law  and  the  labor  law,  in
   relation to enacting the crash victims bill of rights

   THE  PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
 BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
 
   Section 1. This act shall be known and may  be  cited  as  the  "crash
 victims bill of rights".
   §  2.  The  vehicle and traffic law is amended by adding a new section
 607 to read as follows:
   § 607. REPORTS; INJURED OR KILLED PERSONS.  1. ANY REPORT OF AN  ACCI-
 DENT  REQUIRED  UNDER THIS ARTICLE OR UNDER THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF
 THE COMMISSIONER, IN WHICH ANY PERSON IS  KILLED  OR  INJURED  SHALL  BE
 PROVIDED, FREE OF CHARGE:
   (A) TO ALL PERSONS INJURED AS A RESULT OF SUCH ACCIDENT;
   (B) TO THE NEXT OF KIN OF ALL PERSONS KILLED OR SERIOUSLY INJURED AS A
 RESULT OF SUCH ACCIDENT; AND
   (C) TO THE PARENT OR GUARDIAN OF ALL PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN
 INJURED AS A RESULT OF SUCH ACCIDENT.
   2.  REPORTS  PROVIDED PURSUANT TO THIS SECTION SHALL BE MADE AVAILABLE
 ELECTRONICALLY.
   3. REPORTS PROVIDED PURSUANT TO THIS SECTION SHALL BE PROVIDED  WITHIN
 TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF PROCESSING BY THE DEPARTMENT.
   4. THE COMMISSIONER SHALL PROMULGATE SUCH RULES AND REGULATIONS AS ARE
 NECESSARY TO EFFECTUATE THE PROVISIONS OF THIS SECTION.
   §  3.  Section 606 of the vehicle and traffic law, as added by chapter
 429 of the laws of 2015, is amended to read as follows:
   § 606. Processing of required reports. The commissioner, when process-
 ing reports of accidents  filed  pursuant  to  this  article,  AND  WHEN

  EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                       [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                            LBD02113-01-3

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96tears96eyes
10 months ago

Please pass S96728 into law. There needs to be a law to require law enforcement agencies to provide timely accident reports and information to serious crash victims and the surviving family of fatal crash victims.
I recently lost a loved one in a fatal pedestrian crash. My experience has illustrated that the surviving families of pedestrian fatal crash victims have no protected legal rights to receive timely information and crash reports surrounding their loved ones death. The responding law enforcement agency in my case would not release any details to the surviving family, including the actual location of the crash. We had to extrapolate an approximate location from the press release. The only information we were given was, “the driver struck the victim from behind, stopped immediately and called 911. It was dark, pitch black and they could not see him. They cooperated fully and did nothing wrong. The NYSP crash reconstruction team was called in to performing a crash reconstruction.” Then they gave us his highly reflective backpack light grey shirt and jacket. The responding Deputy gave us an incident number, which was not the same number as used in the police report. Despite multiple requests to the records office, we were informed no report was available. They would not give us the license plate number so we could access accident reports from NYDMV. They provided a phone number to call if we needed additional information, but multiple calls were made and none were answered or returned.
As no information was released, the victims mother hired a lawyer and a FOIL request was initiated. The foil request was answered 46 days later. Included in the information was a police report and a drivers accident report which were submitted to NYDMV. The Driver, preferentially, was given the victims name, address and birthdate within 3 days of his death. The NYSP crash reconstruction report has still not been released 98 days later. Inquiries about the incident with the State police, including the foil request, have yielded no response, nor has any status update been available.
This experience has shaken my faith in law enforcement to the core.
I do not know if this is the experience everyone has with law enforcement releasing information to the victims of serious injury or families of victims of fatal accidents. My first hand experience tells me that laws are needed to ensure timely access to crash reports for injured parties and surviving family of crash fatalities not just the driver of the vehicle which harms them.

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