Cuomo signs bills to improve limo safety
The action comes 16 months after 20 people were killed in a crash in Schoharie County.
ALBANY, N.Y. >> Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday signed limousine safety bills that resulted from multiple-fatality crashes in 2015 on Long Island and 2018 in Schoharie County.
An Ulster County man was among the 20 people killed in the 2018 crash.
One of the new laws requires that motor vehicles converted into stretch limousines by January 2021 have at least two safety belts for the front seat and one safety belt in the rear for each passenger. The new law requires all stretch limousines to be retrofitted to include those seat belts by January 2023.
Another law requires limo drivers carrying nine or more passengers to have a passenger-endorsed commercial driver’s license.
“These far-reaching reforms deliver much-needed protections that will help keep dangerous vehicles off our roadways, crack down on businesses that do not prioritize safety and will give New Yorkers peace of mind when they enter a limo in this state,” Cuomo said.
Relatives of some of the 20 people killed in the Schoharie crash have urged action on safety legislation so other families won’t have to endure the grief they have.
In that crash, on Oct. 6, 2018, a Ford Excursion SUV that had been modified into a stretch limo, blew through a T-intersection and the parking lot of busy country store before slamming into an earthen embankment. The driver, 17 passengers on a birthday outing and two pedestrians in the parking lot were killed.
The pedestrians were James Schnurr, 70, or Kerhonkson, and his sonin-law, Brian Hough, 46, of Moravia, N.Y., in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Schnurr’s widow, Joan, filed a lawsuit in September 2019 against several parties tied to the crash.
Nauman Hussain, the operator of the company whose limo crashed in Schoharie, has pleaded not guilty to 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and seconddegree manslaughter. He is to stand trial in March.
Just weeks before the crash, the limo had failed a state inspection that examined such things as the chassis, suspension and brakes.
A 2015 wreck on Long Island killed four young women on a winery tour when the limo was T-boned while trying to make a Uturn.
The bill signings Monday came several months after the National Transportation Safety Board recommended tighter safety belt and passenger seat standards for new vehicles that are stretched into limousines. The federal agency recommended lap-shoulder belts in all seating positions and urged that limousine seating systems meet minimum crash safety performance standards.
Separate legislation before Congress would require new limousines to have lap and shoulder belts for each seat and would require each new limousine seat to meet new safety requirements.
None of the 17 passengers in the Schoharie crash appeared to be wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, the NTSB said, but the agency determined the poorly designed belts “would not have provided adequate protection.”