If a driver hit you while you were on foot, a Westchester County pedestrian injury lawyer at Silver Law Group will review your case for free. Call 212-470-4544 or send the form on this page, and an attorney will get back to you at any hour. We represent pedestrians struck in Yonkers, White Plains, New Rochelle and Mount Vernon, and in the towns and villages between them. You pay nothing unless we recover money for you. If you can’t travel, an attorney will come to your home or your hospital room.
Do You Have a Case After Being Hit by a Car in Westchester?
You probably have a case if the driver failed to watch for you. New York’s Vehicle and Traffic Law spells out that duty in two sections that come up in nearly every pedestrian claim:
- VTL 1146 requires every driver to use due care to avoid hitting a pedestrian, to sound the horn when needed, and to take extra care on seeing a child or a person who is obviously confused or incapacitated.
- VTL 1151 says that where a traffic signal is missing or not working, a driver must slow or stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk. Drivers usually break this rule at quiet intersections and at stop signs.
The driver’s insurer will almost always say you were partly to blame. Maybe you crossed mid-block, stepped out against the signal, or were looking at your phone. Under CPLR 1411, New York’s pure comparative fault rule, that argument can reduce what you recover. It can never wipe out your claim.
The math works like this. If a jury finds you 25 percent responsible for crossing outside the crosswalk, your damages drop by 25 percent and you keep the other 75 percent. Even a pedestrian found mostly at fault can recover the driver’s share. So don’t accept an adjuster’s claim that jaywalking ends your case. The law says it doesn’t.
Turning-Vehicle and Crosswalk Crashes
On April 21, 2025, a pedestrian was killed at North Broadway and Cemetery Road in White Plains when a right-turning truck hit them at a signalized intersection. Crashes like this are common: the pedestrian has the walk signal, the driver has a green light, and both start moving at once.
A green light lets the driver make the turn. It doesn’t let the driver turn through a person in the crosswalk. Commercial drivers know their mirrors leave blind zones along the passenger side and in front of the cab, so the law expects them to check, creep forward and wait. A blind spot is a known hazard the driver had to plan for, so it doesn’t work as a defense. When the truck belongs to a company, the employer can also be liable for its driver. A crosswalk accident attorney will ask for the truck’s camera footage, telematics data and the driver’s logs before the company’s own investigators shape the story.
Hit-and-Run Pedestrian Claims
You can file a claim even if no one ever identifies the driver. Insurance Law 5208 sends hit-and-run claims to MVAIC, the Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation. MVAIC acts as the insurer when the vehicle can’t be traced. Your right to those benefits depends on two conditions:
- Report the crash to the police within 24 hours, or as soon as you reasonably can if your injuries prevent it.
- File a notice of intention to make a claim with MVAIC within 90 days of the crash.
Miss either one and MVAIC can deny you. Have a family member call the local police department from the hospital if you can’t. Then let your lawyer handle the MVAIC paperwork while you’re still in treatment.
Where Westchester Pedestrians Are Getting Hit
On November 25, 2025, a pedestrian was killed at Central Park Avenue and Clark Street in Yonkers. Central Park Avenue is a wide commercial corridor, and shoppers cross it between strip malls while drivers change lanes to reach parking lots and highway ramps. A year earlier, in 2024, Yonkers City Council members asked the state Department of Transportation to study the northbound Central Park Avenue on-ramp to the Sprain Brook Parkway, citing outdated traffic patterns and asking for a plan to ease gridlock and make the area safer. Backed-up ramp traffic produces the impatient merging and fast turns that put people on foot at risk.
Downtown New Rochelle carries a different kind of risk. Around Main Street and Division Street, buses, delivery vans and turning cars share the road with people crossing between storefronts. A pedestrian there can be struck by a driver pulling out of a loading spot as easily as by one running a light.
The crash location shapes your claim. It decides which police department wrote the report, which businesses have cameras pointed at the street, and who owns the road. Ownership matters if a broken signal, a faded crosswalk or a blocked sightline helped cause the crash. A claim against a city, the county or the state follows different notice rules than a claim against a driver, and you can only pick the right deadline once you know who owns the street.
Who Pays Your Medical Bills First: No-Fault Coverage
Your first payments come from the no-fault policy on the vehicle that hit you, even if you don’t own a car. New York’s no-fault system pays basic economic losses no matter who caused the crash, so the driver’s insurer can’t hold back payment while it argues about jaywalking. Basic no-fault coverage pays up to $50,000 per person for:
- hospital, surgery, physical therapy and prescription costs
- a share of lost wages while you can’t work
- certain other reasonable and necessary expenses, such as travel to medical appointments
No-fault doesn’t pay for pain and suffering. That money comes only from a separate injury claim against the driver, explained in the next section.
The deadline that catches people is the written notice. Under 11 NYCRR 65-1.1, you must give written notice of the claim to the no-fault insurer within 30 days of the crash. Get the driver’s plate number and insurance details from the police report, and have the application filed while you’re still being treated. If you file late, the insurer can refuse to pay bills that should have been covered.
What Your Westchester Pedestrian Claim Is Worth
Your claim’s value depends on whether your injury crosses New York’s serious injury threshold. Insurance Law 5102(d) lets you sue the driver for pain and suffering only if your injury qualifies as serious. Qualifying injuries include a fracture, a significant limitation of use of a body function or system, and an injury that keeps you from most of your normal daily activities for at least 90 of the first 180 days after the crash. Pedestrians usually clear this bar because a car hitting an unprotected body rarely leaves only bruises.
Pedestrian crashes tend to cause the injuries that drive a claim’s value up:
- Fractures of the legs, pelvis, hip and arms, often from the bumper and the fall that follows
- Traumatic brain injury when your head hits the hood, windshield or pavement, sometimes without any visible wound
- Spinal injury, from herniated discs to cord damage that affects movement below the injury
- Lost earning capacity when the injury keeps you from returning to your old job, or to any job
- Future care, including surgery, therapy, home modifications and help with daily tasks for years to come
The final number depends on how well each of these is documented. Before any demand goes out, experienced pedestrian accident lawyers build the record with treating physicians’ opinions on permanence, a vocational expert’s estimate of lost earning power, and a life-care plan that prices future treatment. Your share of fault under CPLR 1411 and the driver’s available insurance also affect what you take home.
We won’t give you an average settlement figure. Averages mix minor sprains with lifelong brain injuries, so no average tells you what your case is worth. An attorney who has read your medical records can give you a realistic range. A website can’t.
Bee-Line Bus and Government Vehicle Claims
A Bee-Line bus crash comes with a shorter clock. Westchester County owns the Bee-Line system, and private contractors such as Liberty Lines operate it. Because the county is the owner, the General Municipal Law deadlines apply:
- GML 50-e: a Notice of Claim must be served within 90 days of the crash.
- GML 50-i: the lawsuit itself must be filed within one year and 90 days.
The same rules generally cover a pedestrian hit by a county or city vehicle, such as a municipal truck or a police car. A claim against the private bus operator can follow a separate timeline. Treat the 90-day date as the one that controls, because a late Notice of Claim can end the claim against the government entity entirely.
What a Westchester County Pedestrian Injury Lawyer Costs
You pay nothing up front to hire us. Silver Law Group works on a contingency fee, which means our fee is a percentage of the money we recover for you, taken only from the settlement or verdict at the end of the case. If there’s no recovery, you owe no fee.
We also advance the case costs, including police reports, medical records, expert reviews and court filing fees, so you never write a check to keep your case moving. The fee percentage is set out in writing at your first meeting, before you sign anything. Because we’re paid only if you are, every hour we put in is aimed at a recovery large enough to cover your losses.
How Long You Have to File a Westchester Pedestrian Claim
For most pedestrian injury lawsuits against a private driver, CPLR 214 gives you three years from the date of the crash. If a family member died, EPTL 5-4.1 sets a two-year deadline for the wrongful death claim, and that clock starts on the date of death, not the date of the crash.
The shorter deadlines discussed above come first:
- 30 days for written no-fault notice
- 90 days for MVAIC notice in a hit-and-run
- 90 days for a Notice of Claim against the county or another government owner
A pedestrian accident lawyer who knows the crash details can tell you which of these applies to you. If you file after the deadline, the court will dismiss the case no matter how strong the evidence is.
Why Westchester Pedestrians Call Silver Law Group
People call us because we make it easy to start, no matter how badly you’re hurt:
- We answer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including the night of the crash.
- Free consultations are available in English, Spanish and Russian, so you or your family can explain what happened in the language you’re most comfortable with.
- An attorney will come to your home or hospital room in Westchester if you can’t get to us.
- We prepare every case as if it will go to trial in White Plains, because insurers make better offers to lawyers they expect to see in court.
- Our office is at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10018, in Midtown Manhattan, and we represent injured pedestrians across Westchester County.
Call 212-470-4544 today. The 30-day no-fault notice deadline may already be running.