{"id":528908,"date":"2026-01-20T03:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/528908\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:20:14","slug":"how-hochul-is-standing-up-big-time-for-new-york-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/528908\/","title":{"rendered":"How Hochul is standing up big-time for New York drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Good on Gov. Kathy Hochul for <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/15\/us-news\/hochul-pledged-to-save-nyers-a-bundle-of-money-on-car-insurance-but-plan-already-facing-pushback\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pushing to lower New Yorkers\u2019 sky-high car-insurance costs<\/a> \u2014 and defying the ambulance chasers who cash in on accidents (real and fake) at the expense of everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>Hochul aims to crack down on the \u201ccombination of fraud, litigation, legal loopholes, and enforcement gaps\u201d that leave New Yorkers every year paying \u201cnearly $1,500 above the national average\u201d for auto insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Among her reforms: Cap the payout for drivers who were committing a crime (e.g., driving drunk) during an accident; prohibit drivers who were chiefly at fault from collecting damages; set \u201cobjective and fair medical standards\u201d for what legally qualifies as a \u201cserious injury\u201d to prevent outsized payouts for minor scrapes and bruises.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019d also empower prosecutors to go after scammers \u2014 such as the criminal rings that <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/06\/21\/opinion\/ms-13s-sick-suit-scam-is-made-possible-by-terrible-ny-laws\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">convince desperate \u201cvictims\u201d to stage accidents<\/a>, resulting in real, sometimes life-changing injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Her reforms mirror the laws of many other (more sane) states, and would go a long way toward making New York less of a \u201cjudicial hellhole,\u201d where litigation has become its own multibillion-dollar cottage industry that cost New Yorkers<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/09\/us-news\/nys-legal-fraud-rises-to-96b-of-waste-mamdani-could-worsen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> an estimated $96.3 billion in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n<p>So, of course, the slimy trial lawyers who feed big off the Empire State\u2019s bonkers liability laws are are squealing.<\/p>\n<p>The state Trial Lawyers Association slammed Hochul for \u201cweakening victim protections\u201d and clamed  \u201cBig Insurance\u201d won\u2019t do the \u201cright thing\u201d by lowering rates when its costs drop.<\/p>\n<p>Bull: The only \u201cvictims\u201d who need fear are those now milking the system; fraud, frivolous lawsuits and ludicrously large payouts are the biggest reasons New Yorkers pay some of the nation\u2019s highest auto-insurance rates. <\/p>\n<p> A full and rousing three cheers for the gov for putting the interests of all other New Yorkers above the trial lawyers\u2019 vile gravy train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good on Gov. Kathy Hochul for pushing to lower New Yorkers\u2019 sky-high car-insurance costs \u2014 and defying the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":528909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5673,20694,4691,5371,336,30091,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-528908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-auto","10":"tag-car-insurance","11":"tag-editorial","12":"tag-kathy-hochul","13":"tag-lawsuits","14":"tag-lawyers","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-opinion","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115925275409157758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}