A Westchester County hit & run lawyer from Silver Law Group will review your case in a free consultation. If your injuries keep you in bed or in a hospital ward, the attorney comes to you, at home or at bedside, in Yonkers, White Plains, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and the rest of the county.
Call early because the evidence in a hit-and-run case disappears quickly. Store cameras record over old footage. Witnesses lose the partial plate they memorized. The 24-hour police report rule for MVAIC claims starts the moment you are hit, and the 30-day no-fault application deadline follows close behind.
The first conversation costs nothing, and there is no fee unless you recover. If you are reading this from a room at Westchester Medical Center or St. Joseph’s, a family member can call for you.
Call 212-470-4544 at any hour, in English, Spanish or Russian, and tell us where you are.
Do You Have a Case If the Hit and Run Driver Fled?
In most cases, yes. A driver who flees has broken Vehicle and Traffic Law § 600. That violation comes on top of the careless driving that caused the crash.
Under VTL 600, a driver who knows or has cause to know that someone was injured must:
- Stop at the scene
- Show a license and insurance card and give a name, address and policy information to the injured person and to police
- Report the crash to the nearest police station as soon as physically able if no officer is there
The criminal penalty depends on how badly you were hurt. Leaving the scene when the person left behind suffers serious physical injury is a class E felony. When the person dies, it is a class D felony.
Your civil claim does not wait for the criminal case. The Westchester County District Attorney’s office prosecutes the crime. Your claim for medical bills, lost wages and pain is a separate case, and it moves forward whether or not police ever make an arrest.
Sharing some of the blame does not end your case either. New York follows pure comparative fault under CPLR 1411. If an adjuster argues you were 20% responsible for crossing outside a crosswalk, your recovery drops by 20% but is not wiped out. The driver who fled still answers for the rest.
When the Driver Is Never Identified
Many drivers who flee are never found, and New York has a fallback for that. The catch is Insurance Law § 5217: a claim involving an unidentified vehicle requires physical contact between that vehicle and you or the vehicle you were in.
That one rule decides a lot of cases. Say a car cuts you off on a parkway and forces you into the guardrail without touching you. That crash will not meet § 5217. This is why proof of contact needs to be collected in the first days: paint on your bumper, a dent at the height of another car’s fender, the pattern of your injuries.
Once contact is proven, coverage comes in a fixed order:
- Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage on your own auto policy
- UM coverage on a policy belonging to a relative in your household
- The Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation (MVAIC), only if no household policy applies
MVAIC has its own eligibility limits. It does not cover non-residents. It does not cover someone who owned an uninsured vehicle. If your car’s insurance lapsed, say so at the first meeting, because it changes which path your claim takes.
A UM claim goes to your own insurer, but that does not put the adjuster on your side. The company’s money is on the line, and the adjuster will look for reasons to pay less.
Hit While Walking or Biking in Westchester
Hit-and-run drivers in Westchester have killed people on foot. In March 2024, a pedestrian died in a hit-and-run on Saw Mill River Road in Hawthorne, and the driver was later arrested in Ossining.
You do not need to have been in a car to collect no-fault benefits. If you or a relative you live with owns an insured vehicle, that policy pays your no-fault benefits as a pedestrian or cyclist. If no household policy exists, MVAIC provides no-fault coverage, subject to the eligibility limits above.
Cyclists should leave the bike unrepaired. Scrape marks and paint transfer on the frame help prove the physical contact that § 5217 requires. Keep the helmet and the clothes you wore too.
What a Westchester Hit and Run Claim Is Worth
A claim’s value comes in two layers, and the first one pays no matter who caused the crash.
New York no-fault covers up to $50,000 in basic economic loss. That covers medical and hospital bills plus lost wages. It is paid by the household auto policy or by MVAIC, and nobody has to prove fault first. Expect the insurer to send you to an exam with a doctor it chooses.
No-fault pays nothing for pain or for the months you could not lift your child. It also pays nothing for a limp that never goes away. That second layer opens only if your injury meets the serious injury threshold in Insurance Law § 5102(d). Qualifying injuries include:
- A fracture
- Significant disfigurement, such as facial scarring
- An injury that kept you from substantially all of your usual daily activities for at least 90 of the first 180 days after the crash
- Other categories listed in the statute, such as permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system
Within that second layer, several things drive value. One is how clearly your medical records connect the injury to the crash. Others are how long you were treated, how much work you missed, and the limits of the policy that has to pay.
If the driver is never found, the UM limit on your household policy usually sets the ceiling. That makes your declarations page one of the first documents a lawyer should read. The 90/180-day rule is where insurers push hardest. Their doctors often report that you went back to normal life sooner than your own doctors recorded.
What to Do in the First 24 Hours
For an unidentified driver, the crash must be reported to police within 24 hours to keep an MVAIC claim open. If your injuries made that impossible, it must be reported as soon as reasonably possible. Many people miss this deadline because they assume the hospital reported the crash for them.
On the Saw Mill River, Bronx River, Hutchinson River and Cross County parkways, the report goes to the Westchester County Police. On local streets, it goes to the city, town or village department where the crash happened. Get the report number before the officer leaves.
- Call 911 and stay at the scene if it is safe to do so.
- Photograph your vehicle, the road, skid marks and any debris the other car left behind.
- Get names and phone numbers from anyone who stopped. Witnesses leave fast.
- Do not wash or repair your car. Paint transferred onto your bumper or door can show the other car’s color and sometimes its make.
- Write down everything you remember, including a partial plate, which way the car went and any damage you saw on it.
- Get medical care the same day.
Call a lawyer before you give any insurer a recorded statement.
Getting Treated and Documenting Injuries
Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla is the Hudson Valley’s only ACS-verified Level I trauma center. Serious hit-and-run injuries from across the county are often taken there. For many crashes in southern Westchester, St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers is closer.
Concussion symptoms can appear late. A headache, sensitivity to light or trouble finding words may start a day or two after the crash, long after you told the ER you felt fine. Go back when the symptoms start and mention the crash at every visit. An insurer will treat a gap in your treatment as proof you were not hurt.
How We Track Down the Fleeing Driver
Finding the driver changes the case because it brings the driver’s own liability insurance into your claim. The search starts with video. Gas stations, delis and homes with doorbell cameras along the route may have recorded the car. Many of those systems record over old footage automatically, so the request to keep the footage has to go out before that happens.
A hit and run accident attorney also chases these leads:
- 911 call audio, where a caller may have read out a plate number or described the car
- Pieces of the vehicle left at the scene, such as a headlight lens or mirror housing, which can narrow down the make and model year
- Paint transfer on your car, your bike or your clothing
- The police investigation file, once it can be released
Some drivers go to great lengths to get away. In September 2016, after a crash on the Saw Mill River Parkway near McLean Avenue in Yonkers, the occupants fled in a different car. A car left at a scene still has a registration and a VIN, and both lead to an owner even after the driver is gone.
What Happens Next: Arbitration or Westchester Supreme Court
Where your claim ends up depends on whether anyone identifies the driver.
If the driver is never identified, your claim is against your own insurer’s uninsured motorist coverage. Disputes over UM claims usually go to an arbitrator instead of a jury. The arbitrator reviews your medical proof and decides the amount. Your opponent is the company you pay premiums to, and it defends the claim the way any defendant would.
If the driver is identified, the case can be filed against that driver in Westchester County Supreme Court, 111 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., White Plains. That means sworn questioning of witnesses, exchanges of records and the possibility of a jury trial. We prepare every case as if it will reach that courtroom, because the defense’s view of a case changes when it knows the other side is ready to try it.
What a Westchester County Hit & Run Lawyer Costs
Silver Law Group works on a contingency fee. You pay no fee unless we recover money for you. If we do, the fee is a percentage of the settlement or verdict, agreed in writing at the start, and it is taken from that recovery.
- Nothing upfront to open your case
- No hourly bills while the case is open
- No fee if there is no recovery
Hit and run legal advice at the first consultation is free. Because the firm is paid only when you are, you will hear a straight answer about whether your case has a real path forward.
Hit and Run Claim Deadlines in New York
Up to five deadlines can apply to one crash, and the shortest ones come first.
- 30 days to file the no-fault application, or the insurer can deny your medical bills
- 90 days to file MVAIC’s Notice of Intention to make a claim when the driver is unidentified
- 180 days to file that notice when the vehicle is identified but uninsured
- Three years under CPLR 214 to sue the driver for personal injury
- Two years under EPTL 5-4.1 to bring a wrongful death claim, counted from the date of death
These deadlines count from the crash or the death, not from the day police close their file. The criminal case has its own schedule and does not pause yours. Families often wait for an arrest before calling a lawyer, and by then the 30-day and 90-day windows may already have closed.
Passengers and family members each have their own deadlines. Every injured person in the car needs a separate no-fault application.
Why Westchester Families Call Silver Law Group
Families from Yonkers to White Plains call us for reasons they can check before signing anything:
- Every case prepared for trial from the first day
- Free consultations in English, Spanish and Russian
- A phone line answered 24/7
- An attorney who comes to your home or hospital
- Our office at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10018, in Midtown Manhattan
Call 212-470-4544 now. The consultation is free, and your 30-day no-fault deadline is already running.