New York City Personal Injury Blog

In a survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 45% of the 2,003 respondents admitted to driving in such a drowsy state that they had trouble keeping their eyes open. This, as New York residents should know, is a dangerous condition to drive in. AAA reports that every year in the U.S., there are some 6,400 fatal car crashes that arise from drowsy driving. Drowsiness impairs judgment and slows reaction times.

It's important, then, that one be able to prevent drowsy driving. To this end, the AASM has provided several tips. The first is to obtain adequate sleep (at least seven hours for adults). Another is to avoid driving at night. On long trips, drivers should ideally have a companion to talk with or to take turns with behind the wheel.

Workers in New York and around the country who have been subjected to sexual harassment are often placed in a position where they are expected to work alongside their perpetrators. This was the conclusion researchers from Michigan State University reached after studying sexual harassment cases that were settled through arbitration between 2008 and 2018. The study, which was published by the Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal, reveals that the punishments meted out to harassers were not upheld almost half of the time and more than one in four harassers were not punished at all.

The researchers also discovered that 41% of the fired harassers were reinstated after serving a suspension and some of them even received back pay. Most of the arbitration cases studied involved blue-collar workers, but the researchers believe the same kind of outcomes are common in the executive world as well. The researchers also say that their findings are significant because a growing number of employment contracts and collective bargaining agreements require sexual harassment claims to be resolved through arbitration.

Artificial intelligence may provide the answer when it comes to reducing distracted driving. Researchers and automakers are striving to create cameras and sensors that can monitor drivers' behavior and do several things in response to distracted driving. One of those things, as many drivers in New York should know, is setting off an alert. All too often, though, drivers become conditioned to these alerts so that they become nothing but "white noise."

Automakers are developing ways to deal with this, such as turning the background of the dashboard a different color and shutting the radio off so that the alert can come through. Moreover, automakers are trying to make these systems react to distracted drivers by controlling the vehicle through its braking and steering capabilities to avoid a potential collision.

New York law protects employees from sexual harassment in the workplace as does federal law. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the federal law, but it only applies to workplaces with at least 15 employees. New York City law is similar in coverage.

There are two types of workplace sexual harassment. Quid pro quo sexual harassment is said to have occurred when an individual, such as a supervisor, asks an employee for a sexual favor in exchange for something else, such as a promotion or keeping the job. Hostile environment is a type of sexual harassment that involves unwanted conduct based on the person's sex. In general, it must be severe or pervasive enough that a hostile work environment is created for the employee. Some of the factors a court might look at to determine whether workplace conduct rises to the hostile environment level is the frequency of the conduct, the nature of the conduct and who the harasser was.