Buffalo snow plow fleet cut in half to 14 as weather takes toll<\/a><\/p>\nVideo from a home security camera appears to show a large snowplow striking a car parked along a snow-covered roadside. The incident reportedly occurred on January 1, according to vehicle owner Rebecca Sepulveda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn’t even involved in the accident \u2014 it happened when I was in my house \u2014 and I just had never heard of that before,\u201d Sepulveda said, referring not only to the crash but also to what she learned afterward about state law.<\/p>\n
Sepulveda says she later discovered that under New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law, government-operated snowplows generally have immunity from liability for property damage caused during normal snow removal operations.<\/p>\n
That immunity can leave vehicle owners in a difficult position, even if they were not present when the damage occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cI obviously have to get my car fixed to go to work, so I’m going through my own insurance. I have to pay the deductible and they said the premiums might go up depending on the damage,\u201d Sepulveda explained.<\/p>\n
Kate Wdowiasz, mayor of Dunkirk, says the city uses an outside insurance carrier to handle situations like this. However, she noted that the city does not ultimately determine whether a resident will be reimbursed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City of Dunkirk has absolutely no say whether or not she’s going to be reimbursed,\u201d Wdowiasz said. \u201cI can tell you from my own personal experience, I have hit a pothole that has done extensive damage to my own vehicle and I’ve had to put that through my insurance carrier. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s unfortunately one of the things that does happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wdowiasz added that she sympathizes with Sepulveda\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the mayor, I ideally would never want to see this happen to anybody and I feel terrible that it has happened, but it really is out of my hands at this point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While snowplows play a critical role in keeping roads safe during harsh winter weather, the law may come as a surprise to drivers who park along city streets. In many cases, if damage occurs during normal snow removal operations, vehicle owners may need to rely on their own insurance coverage.<\/p>\n
For residents in snowy regions, the incident serves as a reminder to be aware of local parking advisories during storms and to review their auto insurance policies to understand coverage and deductibles in the event of winter-related damage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government-operated snowplows are often not held liability for property damage. DUNKIRK, N.Y. \u2014 Residents in Dunkirk are being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-133127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}