The aftermath of a car accident can be confusing and scary. After you’ve been involved in an accident, not only do you have to deal with injuries, other drivers, and the police, but you also must act in a way that gives you the best possible chance at obtaining financial compensation for your injuries. Therefore, it’s important to know what steps to take should you ever find yourself involved in a car accident. In this article, we explain what to do after a car accident in New York.
Two of those steps are deadlines that most people have never heard of, and missing either one can cost you money you would otherwise have been entitled to. We cover those below along with the practical steps at the scene.
Move to Safety and Exchange Information
If anyone has been injured or killed, call 911 immediately. Police and emergency medical personnel will respond, and New York law requires that an accident involving injury or death be reported.
If the collision caused property damage only, expect to handle it yourself. In New York City, the NYPD does not respond to property-damage-only collisions, and those collisions are not required to be reported to the police at all. Standing in a live traffic lane waiting for officers who are not coming does you no good and puts you in danger.
What to do instead:
- If your vehicle is operable, move it out of the roadway to a safe location.
- Exchange driver’s license, insurance, and vehicle registration information with every other driver involved.
- Get names and phone numbers for passengers and any witnesses before they leave the scene.
- File your own crash report with the DMV, which is covered below.
Where police do respond — an injury accident, or a collision outside the five boroughs — the report they generate is worth having. It creates a contemporaneous record of where the vehicles were, what each driver said, and who was cited. Months later, when the other driver’s account of the crash has changed, that report is often the only neutral account of what happened.
Seek Medical Care
This step usually goes hand in hand with the previous one. When you call the police to report your accident, the operator will send medical personnel if anyone was injured in the accident. However, even if you don’t believe you were injured, you should still seek a medical evaluation—accident symptoms sometimes take days or even weeks to arise.
Get evaluated even if you feel able to walk away. Adrenaline masks a great deal at the scene, and soft tissue injuries, concussions, and disc injuries frequently announce themselves a few days later. Tell the treating provider that you were in a motor vehicle accident and describe everything that hurts, not just the worst of it. And if you are given follow-up care, go to it — both because you need it and because a gap in treatment is the first thing an insurance company points to when it wants to argue you were not really hurt.
Take Photos and Videos
If you can move around safely after your accident, you should take photographs and videos of the accident scene. When doing so, be sure to capture footage of any visible damage to your vehicle, the area surrounding the accident, any skid marks on the road, and any obstacles in the road that may have contributed to the accident.
Photograph more than you think you need. The position of the vehicles before they are moved, the traffic controls, the weather and road conditions, debris, and any visible injuries. Nearby businesses and residences often have cameras that overwrite their footage within days, so note where they are while you are still at the scene.
Gather Information
There are several key pieces of information that you’ll need in order to successfully pursue financial compensation for your injuries. Important evidence you should gather following a car accident includes
- your medical records related to the accident;
- the names, contact information, and insurance information of everyone involved in the accident; and
- the names and contact details of any witnesses to the accident.
Report the Accident
You should also report the accident to your insurance company as soon as possible. The longer you wait to report the accident, the more difficult it may be to obtain compensation for your injuries. In addition, in New York, you must file a motor vehicle accident report with the Department of Motor Vehicles within 10 days of the accident if it resulted in over $1,000 of damages. Failure to do so could result in the suspension of your license.
That form is the driver’s Report of Motor Vehicle Crash, the MV-104, and in the city it is usually on you to file it — since no officer responded, no police report exists, and nobody else is going to create the record for you. You can download it from the DMV website or pick one up at a local precinct.
The consequences of skipping it are more serious than most people assume: failing to file within 10 days is a misdemeanor, and your license or registration can be suspended until the report is filed. The report is also not considered filed unless it is signed.
File Your No-Fault Application Within 30 Days
This is the deadline that catches people, and it is the one worth writing down.
New York is a no-fault state. Your own auto insurer pays your accident-related medical treatment and a portion of your lost wages regardless of who caused the crash — but only if you claim those benefits in time. Written notice of the claim must go to the insurer as soon as reasonably practicable, and in no event more than 30 calendar days after the accident. The insurer then has five business days to send you the application for benefits, commonly called the NF-2.
Basic no-fault coverage in New York is $50,000 per person, and it pays:
- reasonable and necessary accident-related medical and rehabilitation expenses;
- 80% of lost earnings, up to $2,000 per month, for up to three years;
- up to $25 per day for other necessary expenses such as household help and transportation to treatment, for up to a year; and
- a $2,000 death benefit.
Thirty days passes quickly when you are hurt, out of work, and dealing with a damaged vehicle. File the notice first and sort out the details afterward.
Understand New York’s “Serious Injury” Threshold
No-fault covers your economic losses, but it does not pay you anything for pain and suffering. To bring a claim against the other driver for those non-economic damages, New York requires that your injury meet the statutory definition of a serious injury.
Under Insurance Law § 5102(d), that means an injury resulting in 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, or significant limitation of use of a body function or system.
One category was removed. Until recently the statute also covered a medically determined non-permanent injury that prevented you from performing substantially all of your usual and customary daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the accident. Legislation effective May 26, 2026 struck that category from § 5102(d) for actions commenced on or after that date, so a claim that would once have qualified on the 90/180 ground now has to fit one of the categories above.
Our page on New York’s serious injury threshold goes through each category, what the courts require by way of medical proof, and where the 2026 changes bite.
Be Careful What You Say to the Other Driver’s Insurer
An adjuster for the other driver will often call within days, friendly and sympathetic, and ask for a recorded statement. You are generally not required to give one, and there is rarely anything to gain by doing it before you know the extent of your injuries. The same applies to signing broad medical authorizations, which can open up years of unrelated records.
Be equally cautious with an early settlement offer. Offers tend to arrive while injuries are still developing, and once you sign a release the claim is closed even if you need surgery six months later.
Being partly at fault may or may not end your claim, and this is another point the 2026 amendments changed. For most injury cases New York still applies pure comparative fault, which reduces a recovery in proportion to your share of the blame rather than barring it. For motor vehicle cases the rule is now stricter: under CPLR 1411(b), a claimant whose share of the fault is greater than the defendant’s recovers nothing. That makes the apportionment argument far more consequential than it used to be, and insurers routinely overstate your share. Our explanation of comparative negligence in New York covers how it now works.
Know Your Filing Deadlines
Separate from the no-fault and DMV deadlines above, there are limits on when a lawsuit can be brought:
- Personal injury: generally three years from the date of the accident.
- Wrongful death: generally two years from the date of death.
- Claims against a city, municipality, or public transit authority: far shorter. A notice of claim generally must be served within 90 days of the accident, with a shortened period to sue after that.
That last one matters more often than people expect on Staten Island and in Brooklyn, where a collision may involve a city vehicle, an MTA bus, or a sanitation truck. Ninety days is not long, and the requirement applies before any lawsuit is filed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I file a no-fault claim with my insurer or the other driver’s?
Your own. No-fault benefits come from your own policy regardless of who caused the accident, which is what “no-fault” means. Notice must reach your insurer within 30 calendar days of the accident.
Do I have to give the other driver’s insurance company a recorded statement?
Generally, no. That adjuster works for the company that may end up paying your claim, and a statement given before you know the extent of your injuries tends to help them more than it helps you.
What if the accident was partly my fault?
You may still recover. New York reduces a recovery by your percentage of fault rather than eliminating it, so being partly responsible does not by itself end a claim.
I felt fine at the scene but I’m in pain now. Is it too late?
Delayed symptoms are common, particularly with soft tissue and head injuries. Get evaluated now and make sure the records reflect the accident. If you are still inside the 30-day no-fault window, file that notice right away.
What if the other driver had no insurance?
Your own policy may cover it. New York auto policies include uninsured motorist coverage, and many drivers also carry supplementary underinsured motorist coverage that applies when the at-fault driver’s limits are too low. These claims have their own notice requirements, so raise it early.
Contact a Personal Injury Attorney
Finally, if you’ve been involved in a car accident in New York, you should contact a personal injury attorney as soon as possible. At the Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr., we represent car accident victims in Brooklyn and Staten Island. When you come to us for assistance, we’ll do everything in our power to ensure that you obtain the financial compensation you deserve. Please contact us today to schedule a free consultation.
If you were hurt in a crash that happened while you were working — driving for your job, making a delivery, or travelling between job sites — you may have a workers’ compensation claim alongside the case against the other driver. Those two claims interact, and it is worth raising both at the outset.
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