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SCHENECTADY
Crunch! Bang! Ding! City to pay for accidents
High accident rate forces vehicle policy $25K deductible
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    Every time a city employee causes a traffic accident this year, the city likely will have to pay the entire bill.
    City workers — police, fi re and truck drivers — got into so many accidents last year that the city agreed to a $25,000 liability deductible per accident, essentially agreeing to pay for nearly every claim.
    The at-fault accident rate was so high that Cool Insurance threatened to raise insurance rates by $1.5 million this year. Instead, Finance Commissioner Ismat Alam negotiated a compromise: The city increased its deductible from $0 to $25,000. That’s well over budget, and there are no immediate plans for filling the gap.
    It’s not a great situation, Alam said, but after city drivers racked up 98 accidents last year, including 21 collisions with parked cars and another 11 with fixed objects, she said she had no choice.
    “If it went up $1.5 million, there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said. “Change the deductible, and through training, through oversight, we can reduce it.”
ACCIDENT PRONE
    The main culprits, she said, are police, firefighters and Bureau of Service drivers, who mainly drive trucks. She declined to offer specifi cs on which drivers, or which department, had the worst driving record.
    Their managers will attend a meeting every quarter to go over each accident and its causes. Alam hopes those meetings will lead to specific training to correct common mistakes.
    Every driver in all three departments will also take a customized driving class offered by the insurance company to teach them how to safely handle police cars, SUVs and large trucks.
    Police will learn how to drive in a way that protects public safety, Mayor Gary McCarthy said. Others will learn how to better drive trucks and SUVs.
    “It deals with situations where you may be driving a bigger vehicle,” he said, adding, “People are bumping into someone or swinging wide into something.”
    Most of the accidents are fenderbenders, he said. Some are inexpensive: the City Council recently approved a $650 claim for one accident.
    Alam said she’s certain many accidents can be avoided with training..........................>>>>...............>>>>.....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00103&AppName=1

It is very difficult to belive that ANY entity- private or public, would have a ZERO DEDUCTIBLE. What wonderful management skills. I myself carry 1,000 dollar deductible on my car, 2% on my home. Idiots.

But I want to know what is being done to discipline the drivers, if anything....I mean look at what some of those accidents were.....totally absurd!!!! and how many are repeat offenders and what was done to them???

zero

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

zero

So we adjust the taxpayer's money to cover this crap and hold no one accountable...probably becuase of the way the union contract is written.......why don't we give them vehciles to drive home with too!!!!!  OH WAIT, WE ALREADY DO!!!!

Apparently there is no responsibility anywhere in government and no one is accountable. Give them more money and power.

The more I learn about the way the city is run the more it amazes me.  They probably set it up to reduce the amount of checks they needed to send out to pay the potential 98 deductables they would have paid.

This in turn saved $50 in time savings for our payables staff but cost us thousands in higher insurance premiums.

I am frightened that they were threatening to raise our insurance $1.5 million.  If they are raising it $1.5 million, what is the whole premium now?

As always, great reporting here.  Obviously either a lot of questions werent asked or they were selectively left out for some reason.  Hopefully the Times union can get to the bottom of the following questions.

How many accidents did we have last year and the year before?
How many accidents were on the job?
How many were when the car was used for personal use?
What is the entire premium paid per year for the last three years?
How many employees had multiple accidents?
Is there anything taken corrective action wise for employees who continue to have accidents?
Have we met the uninsurable mark yet?  Seems to be the case.  

How did they come up with the $25,000 deductable amount?  How much did this reduce our premium?  If it didnt then either we are being robbed by the iunsurance company or we are almost uninsurable.

Does the city conduct Post Accident Drug Testing on employees for damaging city equipment?

Quoted from TakingItBack

How did they come up with the $25,000 deductable amount?  How much did this reduce our premium?  If it didnt then either we are being robbed by the iunsurance company or we are almost uninsurable.

Way I read it, deductible raised to $25k to avoid $1.5M premium increase...so no reduction, just cost avoidance of $1,475,000. Wonder what premiums really are.  Schdy Gov should review actual cost of premiums versus actual payouts per year nad invest by taxpayers versus being self-insured instead.  Might be surprising, but unless someone does the finite financial analysis, may not be a realistic option.

Can't blame ins company...if they paid out $25k each for 98 instances, that's $2M+

Quoted from CICERO

Does the city conduct Post Accident Drug Testing on employees for damaging city equipment?

I am sure the "union" contract does not allow for it.

Trying to find the Liability Insurance Number in the City of Schenectady budgets from the NY Comptrollers office.  Could it be lumped into the Operations Expense number?

Operations Expense went from $3,051,898 in 1998 to $18,818,239.  Anyone know why such a big jump?

STOP the assault on hard - working civil servants..  This is bordering on criminality.

Hey TakingItBack, I think you should add "Hamburg" to your disclaimer:

TIP TO NEW VISITORS TO THIS FORUM - To improve your blogging pleasure it is recommended to ignore (Through editing your prefere) the posts of the following bloggers - DemocraticVoiceofReason, Scotsgod08 and Smoking Bananas.  They continually go off topic, do not provide facts and make irrational remarks. If you do not believe me, this can be proven by their reputation scores or by a sampling of their posts.  

Quoted from MobileTerminal

Hey TakingItBack, I think you should add "Hamburg" to your disclaimer:

TIP TO NEW VISITORS TO THIS FORUM - To improve your blogging pleasure it is recommended to ignore (Through editing your prefere) the posts of the following bloggers - DemocraticVoiceofReason, Scotsgod08 and Smoking Bananas.  They continually go off topic, do not provide facts and make irrational remarks. If you do not believe me, this can be proven by their reputation scores or by a sampling of their posts.  

my personal favorite was Gravel Gertie................

Quoted from alias

my personal favorite was Gravel Gertie................

I'll second thst except thinking of theonewhoshallnotbenamed getting into costume in the basement to play the part.