Silver Law Group handles car crash claims for people hurt in collisions across Nassau and Suffolk counties. Call 212-470-4544 to speak with a Long Island car accident lawyer for free, today, before you answer another question from an insurance adjuster.
The first call costs nothing and doesn’t commit you to anything. We ask how the crash happened, what treatment you’ve had and who has already contacted you. From those answers we can tell you whether New York law gives you a claim beyond no-fault, which deadlines have already started and what to stop doing now, such as signing the medical authorizations the other driver’s insurer mailed you. Our office is at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, in Midtown Manhattan, and we answer calls from Long Island at any hour.
Do You Have a Car Accident Case on Long Island?
You have a case when another driver’s carelessness caused the crash and the crash caused your injury. New York negligence law splits that into four things your lawyer has to prove:
- The other driver owed you a duty of reasonable care, which every motorist owes everyone else on the road.
- They broke that duty by tailgating, running a red light, texting or turning left across your lane.
- That failure caused the collision.
- You were injured and lost money, time or health because of it.
Fault rarely falls 100% on one side, and insurers know it. Expect the adjuster to say you were speeding, braked too hard or changed lanes without signaling.
New York answers that argument with CPLR 1411, the pure comparative negligence rule. Your share of fault reduces your damages but never wipes them out. If a jury finds you 30% responsible, you still recover 70% of your damages. New York has no 50% bar, so even a driver found mostly at fault can collect the share of damages caused by the other car.
Evidence moves those percentages. A car accident attorney works to get dashcam and storefront video, 911 recordings and the other driver’s phone records before they are overwritten or thrown away. Most of that footage is lost within weeks.
Meeting New York’s Serious Injury Threshold
No-fault insurance blocks most pain-and-suffering lawsuits unless your injury counts as a “serious injury” under Insurance Law 5102(d). These are the categories that come up most often after car crashes:
- a fracture of any bone, including a cracked rib or wrist
- significant disfigurement, such as facial scarring from glass or an airbag
- permanent loss of use of a body organ, limb, function or system
- a permanent or significant limitation of use of a body part or system, usually proven through range-of-motion testing and imaging
- an injury that kept you from your normal daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash
If your injury meets the threshold, you can sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering as well as financial losses. This is where insurers fight hardest. Defense doctors often call a herniated disc “degenerative,” so steady treatment records starting in the first week carry real weight.
Common Car Crashes on Long Island Roads
Most Long Island car traffic runs along a few main roads, and each one has its own typical crashes.
- The Long Island Expressway (I-495), where stop-and-go congestion sets off chain-reaction collisions
- The Southern State and Northern State Parkways, with short merge lanes and tight curves
- Sunrise Highway, which runs through signalized intersections in Nassau before becoming an expressway in parts of Suffolk
- Hempstead Turnpike, a multi-lane commercial strip with constant turning traffic
- Route 110 through Amityville, Farmingdale, Melville and Huntington, where office-park commuters mix with shopping traffic
The type of crash affects how fault gets proven.
- Rear-end collisions usually put most of the blame on the trailing driver, who had to keep a safe following distance. The fight is often about whether the lead car stopped suddenly for no reason.
- T-bone crashes happen at intersections and turn on who had the right of way. Signal timing, witness accounts and nearby cameras decide them.
- Lane-change and sideswipe crashes on the LIE and the parkways often come down to one driver’s word against the other’s, unless someone had a dashcam running.
The trend is getting worse. Data the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee released in December 2025 showed Long Island traffic deaths rising from 103 to 110.
Head-On Collisions
Head-on crashes cluster where nothing separates the two directions of traffic. Montauk Highway on the South Shore and North Country Road (Route 25A) on the North Shore both have long undivided stretches. A driver who drifts over the double yellow line meets oncoming cars at their combined speed. Crossing the center line is strong evidence of negligence by itself, and the crossing driver has to explain it away, usually by blaming something sudden like a blown tire or a car that cut them off. A wrong-way entry raises a different question: how did the driver end up there, and did a confusing ramp or missing signs play a part? A head on car crash lawyer prepares for catastrophic injuries, including traumatic brain injury, spinal fractures, crushed legs from the footwell caving in and chest trauma from the steering wheel and seat belt. These injuries almost always meet the serious injury threshold, so the case turns on fault and on how much insurance is actually available.
What Is Your Long Island Car Accident Claim Worth?
Your own no-fault coverage pays first, no matter who caused the crash. Insurance Law 5102(a) sets basic economic loss at up to $50,000 per person, which covers reasonable medical bills and part of your lost wages.
After a serious injury, that coverage can run out within weeks once surgery and missed work add up. Everything above that limit, and every loss no-fault never covers, has to come from the at-fault driver through a liability claim or a car accident lawsuit. Here is what you can recover beyond no-fault:
- medical costs above what no-fault paid, including surgery, physical therapy and prescriptions
- lost earnings above the no-fault cap, plus lost earning capacity if you can’t return to the same work
- pain and suffering, past and future, once your injury meets the serious injury threshold
- future care: follow-up surgeries, home help, assistive devices and therapy that may last for years
Ignore online settlement calculators. They multiply your medical bills by a number someone picked, and they can’t see what actually drives value: your fault percentage under CPLR 1411, whether your injury fits a 5102(d) category, the at-fault driver’s policy limits and how a Nassau or Suffolk jury is likely to read the evidence. A number from a website also gives the adjuster a starting point to bargain you down from.
Value comes from documentation. An automobile accident attorney builds it from your treating doctors’ reports, your pay stubs and tax returns and, for permanent injuries, a projection of what future care will cost and for how long.
What Happens After a Car Crash in Nassau or Suffolk
Three things have hard timing after a Long Island crash: your medical exam, your DMV report and the evidence at the scene.
- Go to an emergency room the same day if anything hurts. Long Island’s Level I trauma centers are Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island in Mineola, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, Stony Brook University Hospital and Good Samaritan in West Islip.
- File an MV-104 with the DMV within 10 days. Vehicle and Traffic Law 605 requires it when anyone was injured or killed, or when property damage is over $1,000, even if police came and wrote their own report.
- Photograph the cars, the scene and your injuries before the bruises fade, and write down the names and phone numbers of witnesses.
- Keep every follow-up appointment and tell each doctor about all your symptoms. A gap in treatment is the first thing the insurer will point to.
Call a car crash lawyer before you sign anything either insurer sends you. Some of those forms do more than authorize a records request.
Where Your Lawsuit Will Be Filed
Serious-injury car cases on Long Island are filed in New York State Supreme Court. Despite the name, it is the trial-level court. Each county has its own courthouse:
- Nassau County Supreme Court, 100 Supreme Court Drive, Mineola
- Suffolk County Supreme Court, civil, 1 Court Street, Riverhead
Under CPLR 503, the case can be filed in the county where any party lived when the suit began or where a substantial part of the events happened. Take a crash on Sunrise Highway in Massapequa involving a driver from Suffolk: the case could go to either Mineola or Riverhead, and your lawyer chooses based on how quickly cases move and who sits on the jury.
What a Long Island Car Accident Lawyer Costs
You pay nothing upfront and nothing by the hour. Silver Law Group works on a contingency fee: our fee is a percentage of the money recovered for you, taken from the settlement or verdict when the case ends. If there is no recovery, you owe no fee.
Case expenses are separate from the fee. Court filing fees, charges for medical records and expert reports all cost money. The written retainer you sign spells out what those costs are, who pays them upfront and whether they come out before or after the fee is calculated. Ask us to go through it line by line before you sign, and we will.
Hourly billing works the other way. The lawyer charges for every call, letter and deposition whether or not the case pays off. If you’re out of work after a crash, that means paying a lawyer from savings that are already shrinking. With a contingency fee, our fee grows only when your recovery does.
Deadlines for Long Island Car Accident Claims
Four separate deadlines can apply to a single Long Island crash, and the shortest one starts the day of the collision.
- Your no-fault application is due within 30 days under 11 NYCRR 65-1.1. Miss it and your own insurer can deny medical and wage benefits.
- A lawsuit against a private driver must be filed within three years of the crash under CPLR 214.
- If a Nassau County, Suffolk County, town or village vehicle hit you, General Municipal Law 50-e requires a Notice of Claim within 90 days.
- The lawsuit against that government body must follow within one year and 90 days under GML 50-i.
The government deadlines are the ones that catch people out. A crash with a Suffolk County police car or a Town of Oyster Bay public works vehicle feels like any other collision, yet the claim against the government shrinks from three years to 90 days for the first filing. Filing late requires a judge’s permission, and judges do not always give it.
The three-year deadline is less forgiving than it sounds. Records, video and witnesses’ memories fade long before it runs out, and a car wreck lawyer needs time to gather all of it before filing.
Fatal Car Accidents on Long Island
More than 2,100 people died in crashes on Long Island from 2014 through 2023, according to a Newsday analysis. A family that loses someone in a crash faces different rules than an injured driver does.
Under EPTL 5-4.1, a wrongful death action must be filed within two years of the death. The claim belongs to the personal representative of the estate, so the family usually has to ask the Surrogate’s Court in Nassau or Suffolk to appoint one before the lawsuit can start. That step takes time, which makes the two years shorter in practice.
New York also limits what a family can recover. In December 2025, Governor Hochul vetoed the Grieving Families Act for the fourth time. Damages are still limited to pecuniary loss: the income, household services and parental guidance the person would have provided, plus funeral and medical expenses. The law still does not pay for grief or lost companionship.
That puts proof of financial contribution at the center of the case. Fatal accident lawyers document the person’s earnings history, the work they did at home and the guidance a parent gave the children, often with an economist testifying about what those losses add up to over a lifetime.
Why Long Island Crash Victims Call Silver Law Group
Every case we take is prepared as if it will be tried in Mineola or Riverhead. Insurers set settlement offers partly on whether the lawyer across the table will actually pick a jury.
- Witness statements, records and expert reviews gathered early, as if trial were next month
- Consultations and case updates in English, Spanish and Russian
- A phone line answered 24/7 at 212-470-4544
- An attorney who comes to your home in Nassau or Suffolk, or to your hospital room at Stony Brook or NUMC, when you can’t travel
- No fee unless you recover
Call 212-470-4544 now. The consultation is free, and the adjuster’s next call can wait until you’ve talked to us.