If a driver hit you on your motorcycle anywhere from Yonkers to Peekskill, call 212-470-4544 today. A Westchester County Motorcycle Accident Lawyer at Silver Law Group will review your accident in a free consultation in English, Spanish, or Russian and explain where your claim stands before you sign anything.
Riders start from a weaker position than drivers. No-fault insurance does not pay a motorcycle rider’s medical bills. The other driver’s insurer may also call within days to get a recorded statement that shifts the blame to you. Each week you wait, traffic video gets overwritten and the bike may be sold for salvage. You pay nothing for the consultation, and you owe no fee unless you recover.
Do You Have a Motorcycle Accident Case in Westchester County?
Vehicle and Traffic Law 1252(a) gives every motorcycle the right to the full use of a lane. It also bars drivers from operating in a way that takes that lane away from a rider. When a car crowds you out and you go down, the driver has broken a specific statute. That makes fault easier to prove than a vague claim that someone was careless.
Three types of crashes show up in motorcycle claims again and again:
- Left-turn crashes. A driver turning left at an intersection misjudges your speed or never looks, then cuts across your path. The driver either didn’t see you or guessed wrong about how fast you were going. Neither excuse helps a driver when you were lawfully in your lane.
- Unsafe lane changes. A driver merges into your lane without checking the mirror or blind spot and pushes you toward the shoulder or into the next lane. This is exactly what 1252(a) prohibits.
- Dooring. A driver or passenger in a parked car swings a door open into your path, and you have no time to brake or swerve.
More than one party may owe you compensation. That matters when a single driver’s policy is too small for a serious injury:
- the driver who caused the accident, through that driver’s liability insurance
- the driver’s employer, if the driver was working at the time, such as making deliveries or driving a company vehicle
- the company that made the bike or a defective part, when a brake, tire, or throttle failure caused the crash or made your injuries worse
Westchester Roads Where Riders Get Hurt
Four Westchester roads come up in rider injury claims, and the road you were on affects how your case is built.
- In April 2023, a crash on the Bronx River Parkway south of the Yonkers Avenue exit was fatal. The parkway is county-maintained, so any claim based on its pavement or design goes through Westchester County.
- A group ride on the Sprain Brook Parkway in Elmsford ended in a crash in 2014. When several bikes and cars are involved, the first job is working out which vehicle started the chain of collisions, because that driver’s insurer is the one that pays.
- The Saw Mill River Parkway has curves and short entrance ramps. That gives riders little room when a merging driver misjudges the gap.
- On the Taconic, traffic meets at Kensico Circle, where entering and circling vehicles have to merge. A driver focused on finding a gap in car traffic can miss a motorcycle already in the circle.
The road also tells you who maintains the pavement. If a defect helped cause the accident, that decides which deadline applies.
Crashes Caused by Parkway Defects
A pothole, a broken pavement edge, or loose gravel on a curve can throw a motorcycle rider off the bike while a car simply rolls over it. If a road defect caused your accident, the government that maintains the road becomes a defendant. Westchester’s main parkways belong to two different owners, and each one has its own rules.
- Westchester County maintains the Bronx River Parkway. Under General Municipal Law 50-e, you must serve a Notice of Claim on the county within 90 days of the crash before you can sue.
- The New York State Department of Transportation maintains the Saw Mill River Parkway and the Sprain Brook Parkway. Claims against the State go to the Court of Claims. Court of Claims Act 10(3) requires you to file the claim, or a notice of intention to file one, within 90 days.
Both clocks are a small fraction of the three years you get to sue a negligent driver.
Why No-Fault Insurance Does Not Cover Motorcycle Riders
Insurance Law 5103(a)(1) excludes motorcycle occupants from New York’s mandatory no-fault benefits. A driver hurt in a car crash has their own insurer pay medical bills and part of their lost wages, no matter who caused the crash. A rider gets none of those benefits, and neither does a passenger on the back of the bike.
Your bills still have to be paid by someone. If you have health insurance, it becomes the first payer for the emergency room, surgery, and follow-up care, minus your deductibles and copays. Whatever health insurance leaves unpaid becomes part of your claim against the at-fault driver’s liability policy. So do the lost wages that no-fault would have covered for a car occupant.
The exclusion also works in your favor. Riders are not “covered persons” as Insurance Law 5102(j) defines that term. As a result, the “serious injury” threshold in Insurance Law 5102(d) does not limit your lawsuit against the driver who hit you. A car occupant with a torn shoulder ligament may be shut out of a pain-and-suffering claim if the injury falls short of that threshold. A motorcycle rider with the same injury is not.
If an adjuster tells you your injury is “not serious enough” to claim pain and suffering, the adjuster is applying a car-crash rule to a motorcycle accident. Do not accept it, and do not sign anything based on it.
What Your Westchester Motorcycle Claim Is Worth
Your claim’s value depends on the injury, and motorcycle injuries tend to be worse than car injuries because nothing stands between you and the pavement. Common injuries include:
- road rash, which can need skin grafts when it goes deep and can leave permanent scars
- broken wrists, collarbones, legs, and pelvises, many repaired with surgical plates or rods
- traumatic brain injury, which can happen even with a helmet on and can affect memory, mood, and your ability to work
- spinal cord injury, ranging from partial loss of feeling to paralysis
Many badly injured riders in the county are taken to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, an ACS-verified Level I adult trauma center. The trauma notes, imaging, and surgical reports created there are the first proof of how badly you were hurt. A motorcycle injury lawyer builds your claim’s value from those records, not from an adjuster’s estimate.
Your claim against the at-fault driver can include three kinds of damages.
- Medical costs, past and future: the trauma admission, surgeries, physical therapy, and the care you will still need years from now.
- Lost wages for the time you missed, plus lost earning power if you cannot go back to the same job.
- Pain and suffering, which covers the physical pain, the scarring, and the parts of daily life the injury took from you.
No honest lawyer can give your case a number on the first call. The value depends on your final medical outcome, the insurance available, and how fault is divided. The insurer will start arguing about fault right away.
Helmet, Lane-Splitting, and Partial-Fault Defenses
In motorcycle cases, the insurer’s first move is often to blame the rider. Three statutes give it something to work with:
- VTL 381(6) requires both the operator and any passenger to wear a helmet.
- VTL 381(7) requires eye protection.
- VTL 1252(c) bans lane-splitting, meaning riding between lanes of traffic or passing a vehicle inside its own lane.
Breaking one of these rules does not end your case. Under CPLR 1411, your share of the fault reduces your recovery by that percentage, but it never bars recovery. If a jury finds you 20 percent at fault for riding between lanes, you still recover 80 percent of your damages from the driver who turned into you.
A missing helmet has nothing to do with a broken leg or road rash on your arm. Arguments over fault percentages are won with evidence, which is why the bike and your gear need to be saved.
What Happens After You Hire Us
A motorcycle wreck attorney’s first job is to lock down evidence before it disappears. After you sign, the work goes in this order:
- Keep the motorcycle and helmet exactly as they are. Do not let an insurer send the bike to an auction yard, and do not have it repaired. The crush damage, paint transfer, and scrapes on the helmet show the angle and force of the impact.
- We get the accident report from the Westchester County Police or the New York State Police, depending on which agency responded. We also get witness names and request nearby camera footage before it is recorded over.
- We collect your records from the trauma center and every doctor you see afterward, and we track your bills and lost pay as they come in.
- We take every call from the insurance adjuster, so you never give a recorded statement.
- If the insurer will not pay what the claim is worth, we file a lawsuit in Westchester County Supreme Court, 111 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., White Plains.
You do not need to travel to Manhattan for any of this. If you are in the hospital or recovering at home, the attorney comes to you.
What a Westchester Motorcycle Lawyer Costs
Silver Law Group handles motorcycle accident cases on a contingency fee. The fee is a percentage of the money recovered for you, through a settlement or a verdict, and it is paid out of that recovery when the case ends. If there is no recovery, there is no fee.
You pay nothing upfront and nothing by the hour while the case is open. You will see the percentage in writing before you sign. Hiring a motorcycle personal injury attorney this way means your lawyer gets paid only when you do.
Deadlines for Westchester Motorcycle Accident Claims
Each claim from a Westchester motorcycle accident has its own deadline, and the shortest one controls your plans.
- Three years from the crash to sue the at-fault driver for your injuries, under CPLR 214.
- Two years from the date of death to bring a wrongful death claim, under EPTL 5-4.1.
- One year and 90 days to sue Westchester County under General Municipal Law 50-i, after the 90-day Notice of Claim.
- Two years to file a claim against the State of New York, if you filed a timely notice of intention within the first 90 days.
Missing a deadline can end your claim no matter how strong the facts are. If a defect on the Bronx River Parkway played a part in your accident, the 90-day clock started the day of the crash.
Talk to a Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Serving Westchester
Silver Law Group prepares every motorcycle case as if it will go to trial in White Plains. Insurers set settlement offers based on how a case would look in front of a jury. A file built for trial from the first week leaves the adjuster fewer ways to cut your claim.
Calls are answered 24/7, so you can reach a lawyer the night of the accident or from a hospital bed in Valhalla. The office is at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10018, in Midtown Manhattan, but Westchester clients rarely need to make the trip.
There are two ways to start:
- Call 212-470-4544 at any hour.
- Fill out the online form, and an attorney will call you back.
If you have them, have the police report number, photos of the bike, and the name of the other driver’s insurance company ready. If you have none of that yet, call anyway.