NYC Car Accident Lawyer

Thousands of people get hurt in New York City car accidents every year, and most of them have no idea what to do next. If you were hurt and you're trying to figure out whether you have a case, what it's worth, or how long you have to act, our NYC car accident attorneys have answers. This page is for you.

New York has a three-year statute of limitations for most car accident injury claims. That sounds like a lot of time. It isn't. Evidence disappears. Witnesses forget. Insurance companies start building their defense the same day the crash happens. The sooner you talk to someone, the better your position.

You don't have to have everything figured out before you call. Just make the call.

Can I Sue the Other Driver If New York Is a No-Fault State?

Yes, you can sue the other driver. No-fault doesn't protect bad drivers from lawsuits.

It just sets a threshold first. No-fault means your own insurance covers your initial medical bills and lost wages regardless of who caused the crash. That sounds reasonable until you realize those limits are low and the insurance company is already looking for reasons to reduce your payout. Once your injuries cross what's called the "serious injury threshold" under New York Insurance Law Section 5102, you can step outside the no-fault system entirely and sue the at-fault driver directly.

Serious injury includes significant disfigurement, broken bones, permanent limitation of a body organ or member, and injuries that prevent you from doing your normal daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days following the accident. If your injuries required surgery, kept you off work, or changed what you can do every day, there's a strong chance you qualify.

Our NYC car accident lawyers will tell you plainly whether your case crosses that line. No runaround.

What If the Other Driver Was Uninsured or Fled the Scene After a NYC Car Accident?

You still have options. New York requires all drivers to carry uninsured motorist coverage, and your own policy almost certainly includes it.

If the driver who hit you had no insurance, or if it was a hit-and-run on the FDR Drive or a sideswipe on Northern Boulevard that left you with no plate number, uninsured motorist coverage can still compensate you for your injuries. But the clock on filing that claim moves fast. For hit-and-run accidents, you must report the crash to police and notify your insurance company within 24 hours. Missing that window can end your claim before it starts.

The process is more complicated than a standard claim. Not impossible. Our car accident attorneys in NYC handle uninsured and hit-and-run cases regularly, and we know how to document them from the start so nothing falls through later.

How Long Do I Have to File a Car Accident Injury Lawsuit in New York City?

Three years from the date of the accident for most claims against private parties. But the exceptions are where people lose their cases.

If a city vehicle was involved, including an MTA bus, a Department of Sanitation truck, or any other New York City government vehicle, you have 90 days to file a notice of claim with the city. Ninety days. After that, your case against the city is almost certainly gone regardless of how serious your injuries are. State agency vehicles carry different rules. Federal vehicles add another layer on top of that.

This is why day 91 feels so final to us. A case that would have been strong at day 30 can become unwinnable by day 92 through no fault of your own.

What Compensation Can I Recover From a New York City Car Accident Claim?

Real money. Not a promise, but an actual answer.

Car accident victims in New York can recover for past and future medical bills, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, pain and suffering, and the ways the crash has permanently changed daily life. If a family member was killed, a wrongful death claim can recover for funeral costs, lost financial support, and the value of that relationship.

Pain and suffering is where cases vary most. A broken wrist from a rear-end collision on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is a different case than a traumatic brain injury from a broadside crash at Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue. The medical evidence, the lasting impact on your life, and how clearly fault can be established all shape the number. Our NYC car accident attorneys will give you a real picture of what your case is likely worth, not a figure designed to get you excited on the first call.

What If I Was Partly at Fault for My New York City Car Accident?

You can still recover. New York follows pure comparative fault, which means even if you were 40 percent at fault, you can collect 60 percent of your damages.

Insurance companies know this rule. That's exactly why they work to push as much fault onto you as possible. An adjuster who gets you to say on a recorded call that you "maybe could have braked sooner" is trying to shift that percentage in their favor. Don't give a recorded statement to anyone before talking to a lawyer. Not your own insurance company. Not the other driver's. Nobody.

Our car accident lawyers in NYC work with accident reconstruction experts and gather evidence early to establish what actually happened, not what the carrier wants documented.

What Should I Do Right After a Car Accident in New York City?

Call 911. Get the police report number before you leave the scene. That report is often the foundation of everything that follows.

Photograph the scene before the vehicles are moved if you're able to. The skid marks on Flatbush Avenue, the position of both cars at the intersection, the traffic signal at Atlantic and Fourth Avenue, the damage pattern on the rear quarter panel. These are details that vanish in hours and matter enormously six months later. Get the other driver's name, license number, insurance information, and plate. If witnesses are present, ask for contact information before they walk away.

Surveillance footage from nearby businesses, traffic cameras, and first responder bodycams can also be critical. That footage only gets preserved if someone requests it quickly. And go to the hospital or urgent care the same day, even if you feel fine. Adrenaline hides pain. A gap in medical treatment is one of the first things an insurance company will point to when disputing your claim.

Who Qualifies to File a Car Accident Injury Claim With NYC Car Accident Attorneys?

Injured drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists hurt in a crash caused by someone else's negligence may all qualify. You don't have to have been inside a vehicle.

Our NYC car accident attorneys look first at how the accident happened and who was at fault, the nature and severity of your injuries, whether those injuries meet the serious injury threshold under New York's no-fault law, and whether there are identifiable, insured defendants to go after.

Complicated situations are common here. If you were a passenger in an Uber crossing the Williamsburg Bridge and the driver got rear-ended, different insurance layers apply depending on whether the app was active. If you were on a Citi Bike and a driver doored you on Amsterdam Avenue near 96th Street, that's a real case. If the situation is messy, that doesn't mean it's hopeless. It usually just means our NYC personal injury lawyers need to sit down and go through it carefully.

Which NYC Boroughs Do Our Car Accident Lawyers Serve?

All five. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

Each borough has its own traffic patterns, its own problem corridors, and its own character when it comes to how crashes happen and how claims get handled. A rear-end collision on the Staten Island Expressway near the Goethals Bridge interchange plays out differently than a pedestrian knockdown in Midtown near Penn Station or a broadside crash on Atlantic Avenue in Crown Heights. Our NYC car accident attorneys know those differences because we have handled cases across every corner of this city for decades.

Manhattan cases often involve dense intersection traffic, delivery vehicles, and rideshare drivers cutting across multiple lanes on streets like Sixth Avenue, Canal Street, and the West Side Highway service road. Brooklyn sees serious crashes along Flatbush Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, and the Belt Parkway. Queens has some of the most dangerous corridors in the city, particularly along Queens Boulevard, the Van Wyck Expressway, and the stretch of Northern Boulevard running through Jackson Heights and Flushing. The Bronx has the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Grand Concourse, and the Webster Avenue corridor, all of which generate serious injury cases regularly. Staten Island has the expressway and a network of surface roads where high speeds and limited public transit options mean more cars and more crashes.

No matter which borough your accident happened in, the same rules apply and so does the same deadline pressure. Our car accident lawyers in NYC are ready to take your case wherever in the city it happened.

Types of Car Accident Cases Our NYC Car Accident Attorneys Handle

New York City crashes don't all look the same. Our car accident lawyers handle the full range:

• Rear-end collisions: Common on the BQE, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and at signalized intersections throughout all five boroughs. Liability is often straightforward, but insurance companies still fight damages hard.
• Intersection collisions: T-bone and angle-impact crashes at places like Queens Boulevard, Atlantic and Flatbush, or the Grand Concourse produce some of the most serious injuries because of the direct lateral forces involved.
• Pedestrian knockdowns: Pedestrians struck at crosswalks, mid-block, or in parking lots throughout the city. New York law gives pedestrians strong protections, but solid documentation of how the crash happened is still essential.
• Bicycle accidents: Cyclists hit by opening car doors, cut off by turning vehicles, or struck while in a marked lane. The protected bike lanes along First and Second Avenues and throughout Brooklyn haven't eliminated these crashes. Not even close.
• Highway accidents: High-speed crashes on the Van Wyck, the Staten Island Expressway, I-278, and the Cross Bronx. Multi-vehicle pileups and disputes about which driver started the chain reaction require careful reconstruction.
• Rideshare accidents: Uber and Lyft crashes where coverage depends entirely on what the driver was doing at the time of impact. We handle cases where the rideshare driver was at fault and cases where a third driver caused the crash while our client was a passenger.
• Drunk driving accidents: If the driver who hit you was impaired, punitive damages may be available on top of compensatory damages. A criminal case against the driver does not resolve your civil claim. Those are two separate things.
• Wrongful death from car accidents: When a family member is killed in a crash caused by another driver's negligence. New York wrongful death claims carry a two-year statute of limitations and procedural requirements that differ from personal injury claims. The rules are not the same.

How Our NYC Car Accident Lawyers Can Help You Recover What You're Owed

The driver who hit you may already have an attorney. The insurance company absolutely does. Their adjusters handle claims like yours dozens of times a week. Their job is to pay as little as possible, and they count on injured people being exhausted, overwhelmed, and willing to take the first check offered just to make it stop.

Our NYC car accident attorneys change that dynamic. We investigate the crash, gather evidence before it disappears, pull police reports and surveillance footage, document the full scope of your injuries including future care costs that early settlements routinely ignore, and build a claim that reflects what your case is actually worth. We handle the insurance company. You focus on recovering.

We also try cases. Most cases settle. But some don't, and every insurance company knows which firms will walk into a courtroom and which ones settle anything to avoid one. That knowledge shapes every negotiation, and it shapes it from day one.

Here's what working with our car accident lawyers in New York actually means for you:

• No upfront costs: We work on contingency. You pay nothing unless we recover money for you.
• Medical documentation support: We work with medical providers and experts to capture the full picture of your injuries, including what your care is going to cost five years from now.
• Fast evidence preservation: Traffic camera footage, witness contact information, and crash scene documentation can be gone within days. We move quickly.
• Full insurance handling: No-fault claims, uninsured motorist coverage, disputed billing, and every other insurance issue that comes up gets handled by our team, not by you.
• Straight answers: We won't take your case if we don't believe in it, and we won't quote you a number we can't back up.

Future medical costs for surgery, physical therapy, and long-term care can dwarf the initial bills. A settlement that doesn't account for what's ahead isn't a resolution. It's a loss that gets locked in permanently the moment you sign.

Talk to Kelner & Kelner After Your New York City Car Accident

You were hurt. Someone is responsible. And evidence is disappearing right now.

Contact Kelner & Kelner today to speak with an NYC car accident attorney about your case. No fees unless we win.