If a crash hurt you while you were riding as a passenger, you were almost never the one who caused it, and that single fact shapes your whole claim. Silver Law Group is a New York passenger injuries law firm for people hurt riding in a car, taxi, Uber or Lyft, a private or MTA bus, or the subway anywhere across the five boroughs. Because you were not driving, you rarely share any blame, so your recovery is usually not cut down and you can pursue every driver at fault for your injury. You pay no fee unless you recover. Consultations are free, available 24 hours a day, and handled in English, Spanish, and Russian at 212-470-4544.
Do You Have a Passenger Injury Case in New York
Almost every injured passenger has a case. New York uses pure comparative negligence under CPLR §1411, and a passenger who was simply riding along is rarely assigned any share of the fault. That matters because your compensation drops by whatever percentage of blame falls on you, and for a passenger that percentage is usually zero. You can also file against more than one party. If two drivers collided, you can pursue both, including the driver of the car you were in.
Your basic medical costs are handled first through no-fault. New York’s no-fault system, or PIP, pays the early medical bills and part of your lost earnings through the insurance on the vehicle you were riding in, no matter who caused the crash. To claim no-fault, you generally have to file the application within 30 days of the accident, so do not wait. No-fault does not pay for pain and suffering. To sue for that, your injury has to meet the serious-injury threshold in Insurance Law §5102(d) — a category that includes broken bones, significant disfigurement, and injuries that keep you from your normal activities for much of the first three months. A passenger injury lawyer can tell you quickly whether your injury clears that bar.
Passenger Injury Cases We Handle Across New York City
Who pays and how you file depends on what you were riding in. Liability and insurance work differently for a private car than for a yellow cab, a chartered bus, or the subway, and knowing which rules apply is the first real decision in your case. We handle all of them across the city.
Car and Passenger-Vehicle Occupants
If you were hurt as a passenger in a private car, SUV, or van, you can claim against the driver of your vehicle, any other driver who caused the crash, or both. The no-fault policy on the car you were in covers your basic economic loss regardless of fault. Many passengers hesitate here because the at-fault driver is a friend, a relative, or a coworker, and filing feels like suing someone you know. You are not going after that person personally; the claim goes against their insurance, which is exactly what that coverage is for. We handle the insurer so you do not have to.
Taxi and Rideshare (Uber and Lyft) Passengers
In New York City, taxis and rideshare cars are for-hire vehicles licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and they carry commercial liability coverage of at least $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. For a rideshare trip that begins outside the city, the statewide rules under Vehicle and Traffic Law Article 44-B apply instead, and the coverage during an active trip rises to $1.25 million. As a rideshare passenger you may have more than one claim at once — against the driver, against any other vehicle that hit you, and against the company’s policy. Sorting out which insurer is on the hook is often the difference between a full recovery and a short one, and it turns on details like whether your trip started inside or outside the five boroughs.
Bus Passengers — Private, Tour, and Charter
A privately run bus, such as a tour bus, charter, private shuttle, or company or private school bus, is pursued like any other commercial defendant on the standard three-year timeline. The hard part early on is naming the right operator, owner, and insurer, because these vehicles often sit behind several companies and a leasing arrangement. Get that wrong and you file against a party with no coverage. A city bus is different: it is run by a public authority and follows the much shorter deadlines in the next section.
MTA Subway and City Bus Passengers
If you were hurt on the subway or a local city bus, your claim is against a public authority, not a private driver. Subways and local buses fall under the MTA and New York City Transit; express routes run through the MTA Bus Company. These claims trigger the 90-day Notice of Claim rules covered below, and they are unforgiving about deadlines. Common transit-passenger injuries include falls from a sudden stop, being thrown when a bus brakes hard, and slips on a wet or broken platform. If any of these happened to you, the clock is already running.
Who Pays and What Your Passenger Injury Claim Is Worth
Your recovery usually comes in two layers. First, no-fault PIP pays your basic economic loss, meaning the early medical bills and part of your lost wages, through the insurance on the vehicle you occupied, whoever caused the crash. Second, if your injury is serious under Insurance Law §5102(d), you bring a liability claim against the driver or drivers at fault, and that claim reaches the losses no-fault does not touch. A serious-injury claim can include:
- Medical expenses beyond the no-fault limit, including surgery and hospital care
- Wages you have already lost and earnings you will lose going forward
- The cost of future care, therapy, and equipment
- Pain and suffering
We do not post verdict or settlement figures, and you should be wary of any firm that leads with them. What your case is worth depends on your specific injury, how it affects your work and your daily life, and the coverage available — numbers from someone else’s case tell you nothing about yours.
Suing the MTA or a City Bus: The 90-Day Notice of Claim
A claim against the MTA runs on a far tighter schedule than an ordinary injury case, and one early misstep can end it. If you were hurt on a subway or an MTA bus, you must serve a written Notice of Claim within 90 days of the incident under General Municipal Law §50-e and Public Authorities Law §1276. After that, the authority can require you to sit for a hearing under section 50-h, where its lawyers question you under oath before any lawsuit. And you have only one year and 90 days from the date you were hurt to actually sue, far less than the three years you would get against a private driver.
Two things sink these cases most often: sending the notice to the wrong MTA subsidiary, and missing the 90 days entirely. Miss that deadline and the case is usually over before it starts. If your injury happened on the subway or a city bus, call a passenger injury lawyer right away, while there is still time to file correctly.
How Long You Have to File a Passenger Injury Claim in New York
For most passenger claims against a private driver or company, New York gives you three years from the date of the crash under CPLR §214. If a passenger dies from the crash, the family’s wrongful death claim runs on a two-year deadline under EPTL 5-4.1. Those windows sound generous, but they do not apply to every case. Any claim involving the MTA, a city bus, or another public vehicle drops to the 90-day Notice of Claim and the one-year-and-90-day suit deadline described above. Evidence fades quickly too: vehicles get repaired, camera footage is recorded over, and witnesses move on, so the practical deadline to start building your case is much sooner than the legal one. The safest move is to call as soon as you can.
What It Costs to Hire a New York Passenger Injury Lawyer
Nothing upfront. We take passenger injury cases on contingency, which means our fee is a percentage of the money we recover for you, paid only out of a settlement or verdict at the end. If we do not recover anything, you owe no attorney’s fee. You are not billed by the hour, and you do not pay to get started. The first consultation is free, so finding out whether you have a case costs you nothing but the call. For someone who is hurt, out of work, and already hearing from an adjuster, that structure means you can have a lawyer working on your claim without adding a bill to everything else you are dealing with.
The New York Neighborhoods and Boroughs We Serve
We represent injured passengers across all five boroughs:
New York’s passenger injury law is the same in every borough, but the details around your case are not. Which court hears it, which transit line you were on, and which hospital treated you all change how the claim moves. Our office is in Midtown Manhattan and we serve clients citywide, and if your injury makes it hard to travel, the attorney can come to your home or your hospital room.
Why Injured Passengers Choose Silver Law Group
People come to us for what we actually do, not for slogans. Consultations are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We work in English, Spanish, and Russian. You pay no fee unless you recover. We prepare every case as if it will go to trial, which is the posture that makes insurers take a claim seriously. And when you cannot come to us, the attorney comes to you.
You will find us at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10018, in Midtown Manhattan. To talk with a passenger injury lawyer about your claim, call 212-470-4544.