NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – After stopping short last year, lawmakers in Albany are ready to pass some safety reforms for limousine companies after two especially deadly crashes in recent years.
Four young women were killed in a limousine crash on the North Fork of Long Island in 2015. And in Schoharie, a town west of Albany, in 2018, 20 people lost their lives in a crash involving a modified SUV limo.
Lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement last year on a package of bills aimed at reforming the limo industry.
“We spent the offseason talking to our Assembly colleagues, going back and forth with some bill drafts,” said state Sen. Jim Gaughran.
Now everyone appears to be on the same page, Gaughran says.
The measures include requiring seatbelts in new limos, getting drivers tested for drugs and alcohol more often and prohibiting U-turns—the latter of which was a big factor in the 2015 crash.
Gaughran says the families of the crash victims played a big role in the process.
“It was because of their advocacy that it’s going to be done this year,” he said. “They have forced the state Legislature to stand up and listen and get this done.”