New York City Car Accident Lawyers

Serving Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Long Island

Each year, more than 1,000 New Yorkers lose their lives in traffic accidents, while car crashes send well over 100,000 people to emergency rooms and result in more than 12,000 hospitalizations across the state. Behind every one of those statistics is a person whose life was upended in an instant: a commuter rear-ended on the FDR, a parent struck in a Brooklyn crosswalk, a rideshare passenger blindsided in Midtown traffic. Car accidents are frightening, painful, and financially devastating, and the road to recovery is rarely simple.

New York’s no-fault insurance system is designed to provide quick access to medical care and partial wage replacement, regardless of who caused the crash. But no-fault coverage caps out at $50,000 in most cases, and it does nothing to compensate you for pain, suffering, permanent injury, or the long-term consequences of a serious collision. When your injuries are severe, you need an experienced advocate who can push beyond the no-fault system and pursue full compensation from the at-fault driver.

The Cohan Law Firm fights for car accident victims every day, helping ensure they get the care and compensation they need and deserve. Insurance companies routinely try to avoid liability by claiming their driver wasn’t at fault, that your own negligence caused the crash, or that your injuries aren’t as serious as you say. Our New York City car accident lawyers know every tactic insurers use, and we know how to defeat them. If you or a loved one has been hurt in a crash anywhere in the five boroughs or on Long Island, call our office today for a free consultation with a dedicated, experienced legal team.

Where Do You Need Help? Local Representation Across Greater New York

Traffic patterns, road conditions, and even insurance company tactics can vary dramatically across New York’s boroughs and suburbs. We provide focused, neighborhood-aware representation throughout the region, including dedicated practice areas for our clients in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Long Island. Whether your crash happened on the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Belt Parkway, the LIE, or a side street in Astoria, we know the courts, the local hazards, and the strategies that work in your jurisdiction.

What to Do After a Car Crash in New York

The minutes and hours after a collision are chaotic, and the decisions you make during this period can significantly affect both your physical recovery and any future legal claim. Here’s a step-by-step guide to protecting yourself, your health, and your right to compensation.

Immediately After the Crash

If you are seriously injured, your only job is to stay as still and calm as possible while you wait for paramedics. Do not try to move if you suspect a spinal injury, head trauma, or broken bones. If you are able to act safely, however, the following steps can make an enormous difference in any subsequent insurance claim or lawsuit:

• Call 911. Even for a seemingly minor crash, an official police report creates a critical record of what happened.
• Check yourself and others for injuries. If you can safely render aid or offer emotional support to other injured parties, do so.
• Move your vehicle out of traffic only if it can be done safely and without causing further harm.
• Exchange information with all other drivers, including names, driver’s license numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, license plates, and vehicle make and model.
• Identify witnesses and collect their names, phone numbers, and email addresses before they leave the scene. Witness testimony is often the difference between a winning and losing case.
• Photograph everything. Take pictures of all vehicles involved, damage from multiple angles, skid marks, debris, traffic signs, signals, road conditions, and your visible injuries.
• Notify your insurance company as soon as practical.
• Seek medical attention even if you think your injuries are minor. Some serious injuries, such as concussions, internal bleeding, soft-tissue damage, and whiplash, don’t show symptoms for hours or even days.

One important caution: never argue with the other driver about who caused the crash. Stating your version of events to the police is appropriate, but heated arguments serve no purpose, can escalate dangerously, and may produce statements that get used against you later. Stay calm, stay polite, and let the evidence speak for itself.

In the Days After a Crash

If you were injured, the days following a collision should be focused on healing: sleep, hydration, nutrition, and following every instruction your doctors give you. Lean on family and friends for help with driving, errands, and household tasks while you recover. Once you’re stable, follow up with your insurance company if you haven’t already, and reach out to an experienced New York City auto accident lawyer to discuss your legal options before deadlines start running and evidence starts disappearing.

Keep a recovery journal documenting your pain levels, limitations, missed work, missed events, and how the injury is affecting your daily life. This kind of contemporaneous record can be powerful evidence later when an insurance company tries to minimize what you’ve gone through.

Common Causes of Car Accidents in New York City

Every collision is unique, but most fall into recognizable patterns of driver behavior, vehicle defect, or roadway hazard. Identifying the cause of your crash is the first step toward identifying who is legally responsible. We handle the full range of New York traffic crashes, including the following:

Driver Behavior and Negligence

The vast majority of crashes are caused by preventable driver mistakes. We regularly represent clients injured by distracted drivers texting or scrolling behind the wheel, drunk drivers who chose to get behind the wheel impaired, speeding drivers who lose control or can’t react in time, and aggressive drivers and road rage incidents that turn New York’s notoriously tense roadways into something far more dangerous. We also handle cases involving hit-and-run drivers who flee the scene, uninsured drivers, and single-vehicle and phantom-vehicle crashes caused by drivers who run others off the road and disappear.

Crash Types and Impact Patterns

The mechanics of a collision often determine the severity of injuries and the legal theory of liability. Our firm handles every category of impact, including rear-end collisions, head-on collisions, side-impact crashes, T-bone crashes at intersections, rollover accidents, multi-vehicle pileups, and lane departure crashes. We also represent victims of unsafe lane changes, stop sign accidents, and general traffic collisions of every variety.

Roadway and Environmental Hazards

Sometimes the responsible party isn’t another driver but a government entity or contractor that failed to maintain a safe roadway. We pursue claims involving pothole accidents, construction zone crashes, hidden, missing, or incorrect road signs, negligent road design, shoulder accidents, HOV lane accidents, and parking lot accidents. These cases require specialized knowledge of municipal liability rules and short notice-of-claim deadlines.

Vehicle and Equipment Failures

When a crash is caused or made worse by a defective vehicle or component, the manufacturer may be liable under product liability law. We handle airbag injury cases, aftermarket vehicle accidents involving improperly installed parts, and a wide range of mechanical failures.

Specific Vehicle Types

The type of vehicle involved often dictates which insurance policies apply, what regulations were violated, and what compensation may be available. Our practice covers truck accidents involving 18-wheelers and commercial freight, bus accidents on MTA, school, charter, and tour buses, taxi accidents, Uber and Lyft rideshare accidents, limo accidents, commercial vehicle accidents, municipal vehicle accidents involving city-owned vehicles, and crashes involving motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians.

Out-of-State and Special Jurisdictional Issues

If you were involved in an out-of-state car accident while traveling, or if an out-of-state driver caused your crash here in New York, the rules governing your claim become significantly more complex. We have the experience to navigate cross-jurisdictional issues and ensure you’re covered no matter where the wheels stopped.

No-Fault Insurance Claims in New York: What They Cover and What They Don’t

The first place most New Yorkers turn after a car crash is their own no-fault insurance policy, also known as Personal Injury Protection or PIP. A basic PIP policy pays up to $50,000 per person to cover medical expenses and replace a portion of lost wages. You can file this claim regardless of who was at fault, and fault won’t even be a question. That can be a relief if you’re worried about your own role in the crash but still need help paying medical bills.

PIP coverage pays for “reasonable and necessary” medical expenses, including doctor and hospital visits, medications, medical supplies, physical therapy, emergency medical transportation, and related costs. A portion of the $50,000 can also go toward your lost wages if you can’t work due to your injuries, but those benefits are capped at the lesser of 80% of your wages or $2,000 per month, and only for up to three years, regardless of how much you used to earn or how long you remain unable to work. Compensation for pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and other non-economic damages is not available through a PIP policy.

Because PIP coverage is no-fault, you don’t have to sue the other driver to receive your benefits. In fact, you generally cannot sue at all. In exchange for guaranteed quick coverage, you give up the right to file a lawsuit. Some see no-fault as a consumer benefit; others see it as a way to limit insurance company payouts. There is, however, an important exception: you can step outside the no-fault system and file a lawsuit if you suffered a “serious injury” as defined by New York law. When that threshold is met, you can pursue much greater compensation from the at-fault driver. Our New York City car crash attorneys handle these complicated rules every day so you don’t have to.

Car Accident Lawsuits and the Serious Injury Threshold

New York’s no-fault law allows seriously injured victims to bypass PIP benefits and pursue full compensation directly from the at-fault driver and their insurance company. This usually involves filing a lawsuit, though most cases settle before trial. The advantage of a lawsuit is that you can recover the full amount of your medical bills and lost wages, not just the no-fault caps, plus compensation for pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and in appropriate cases, punitive damages.

To prevail, however, you must prove that you suffered a “serious injury” within the meaning of New York Insurance Law § 5102(d). Insurance companies fight these cases hard, often disputing the severity of the injury, challenging the link between the injury and the crash, or arguing that their insured wasn’t at fault. The Cohan Law Firm has years of experience holding negligent drivers accountable and putting together the medical evidence, expert testimony, and factual record necessary to clear the threshold and win.

To meet the serious injury threshold, the accident victim must have suffered one or more of the following:

• Death;
• Dismemberment;
• Significant disfigurement;
• A fracture;
• Loss of a fetus;
• Permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function, or system;
• Permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member;
• Significant limitation of use of a body function or system; or
• A medically determined injury or impairment of a non-permanent nature that prevents the injured person from performing substantially all of the material acts that constitute their usual and customary daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days immediately following the injury.

Compensation Available in a New York Car Accident Lawsuit

When you successfully step outside the no-fault system, the categories of compensation (known as damages) open up substantially. A well-built personal injury claim can recover:

• Past and future medical expenses, including hospital bills, surgical costs, rehabilitation, physical therapy, prescription medications, assistive devices, and projected long-term care;
• Past and future lost wages and lost earning capacity, including diminished ability to perform your prior job or pursue career advancement;
• Pain and suffering, both physical and emotional;
• Mental anguish, anxiety, depression, and PTSD caused by the trauma of the crash;
• Loss of enjoyment of life when injuries prevent you from engaging in hobbies, sports, family activities, or other meaningful pursuits;
• Loss of consortium for spouses affected by the injury;
• Property damage beyond what your collision coverage pays;
• Punitive damages in cases involving particularly egregious conduct, such as drunk driving or intentional acts.

In wrongful death cases, surviving family members may also recover funeral expenses, loss of financial support, loss of parental guidance, and the conscious pain and suffering of the decedent before death.

The New York Statute of Limitations and Why Time Matters

In most New York car accident cases, you have three years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. Wrongful death claims must generally be filed within two years. If a government entity is involved (for example, a city bus, a sanitation truck, or a road maintained by the state), you typically must file a Notice of Claim within just 90 days, with the lawsuit itself filed within a year and 90 days. These deadlines are unforgiving, and missing them generally bars your claim entirely.

Beyond the legal deadlines, evidence disappears quickly. Surveillance footage gets overwritten, skid marks fade, witnesses move or forget details, and vehicles get repaired or scrapped. The sooner you involve an attorney, the more we can do to preserve the evidence that wins cases.

How New York’s Comparative Negligence Rule Affects Your Case

New York follows a “pure comparative negligence” rule, which means you can still recover compensation even if you were partially at fault for the crash. Your award is simply reduced by your percentage of fault. If a jury finds you 20% responsible and awards $500,000, you would recover $400,000. This rule is more generous than that of most states, but it also gives insurance companies a strong incentive to argue that you bear some, or even most, of the blame. A skilled attorney can help minimize any allocation of fault to you and maximize your recovery.

Common Injuries in New York Car Accidents

The injuries we see in serious car crash cases range from immediately catastrophic to slowly developing conditions that don’t fully manifest for weeks or months. Common injuries include traumatic brain injuries and concussions, spinal cord injuries and paralysis, herniated and bulging discs, whiplash and other soft-tissue damage, broken bones, internal organ damage, lacerations and burns, facial injuries and scarring, amputations, and psychological injuries such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Each of these categories carries its own medical and legal complexities, and we work with leading medical experts to document the full scope of harm our clients have suffered.

Why Choose The Cohan Law Firm

Choosing the right attorney after a serious crash is one of the most consequential decisions you’ll make. At The Cohan Law Firm, we offer:

• Decades of focused experience in New York personal injury and car accident law;
• A track record of substantial recoveries for clients with serious injuries;
• Local knowledge of New York City courts, judges, insurance defense firms, and roadway conditions across all five boroughs and Long Island;
• Direct attorney access, meaning you’ll work with a lawyer, not just a case manager;
• Thorough investigation, including accident reconstruction, witness interviews, and review of all available video and digital evidence;
• Aggressive negotiation with insurance carriers, backed by a willingness to take any case to trial when needed;
• No fee unless we win. We work on a contingency basis, so you pay nothing up front and nothing at all unless we recover compensation for you.

Frequently Asked Questions About New York Car Accident Cases

How much does it cost to hire a New York City car accident lawyer?

Nothing up front. We work on contingency, meaning our fee is a percentage of the recovery we obtain for you. If we don’t win your case, you owe us nothing.

How long will my car accident case take?

It depends on the complexity of your injuries and whether the insurance company is willing to settle fairly. Some cases resolve in months; others, especially those involving disputed liability or catastrophic injuries, can take a year or more. We will never rush you into a settlement that doesn’t fully compensate you.

What if the other driver doesn’t have insurance?

You may still have options through your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, your no-fault PIP benefits, or claims against other potentially liable parties. We routinely handle uninsured driver accidents and know how to find every available source of recovery.

Do I have to go to court?

Most car accident cases settle without a trial. However, the willingness and preparation to go to court is exactly what motivates insurance companies to make fair settlement offers. We prepare every case as if it will be tried.

What if I was a passenger?

Passengers almost always have a clean path to recovery because they typically bear no fault for the crash. You may be able to recover from the driver of your own vehicle, the driver of another vehicle, or both.

Should I talk to the other driver’s insurance company?

No. Politely decline to give a recorded statement and refer them to your attorney. Anything you say can, and likely will, be used to reduce or deny your claim.

Call Our Dedicated New York City Car Accident Lawyers Today

If you or a family member were seriously injured in a car accident in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, or anywhere else in the New York City metropolitan area, The Cohan Law Firm is ready to help you get the medical care and financial compensation you need and deserve. We pursue justice on your behalf and hold negligent drivers, and their insurance companies, fully accountable for the harm they’ve caused.

Call our dedicated New York City car accident attorneys today for a free, no-obligation consultation. There’s no fee until we recover for you.