New York Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

• VTL §1146 imposes a statewide duty on every driver to exercise due care to avoid hitting pedestrians and cyclists — a duty that exists independent of who had the signal.
• NYC Administrative Code §19-190 (the Right of Way Law) makes it a violation, civil and criminal, for a driver to strike a pedestrian or cyclist who has the right of way. Within the five boroughs it is a powerful liability anchor.
• No-fault coverage comes from the striking vehicle. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car gets their medical bills and lost wages paid by that vehicle's insurer — you do not need to own a car or have any insurance of your own. The 30-day NF-2 deadline still applies.

A pain-and-suffering lawsuit still requires the serious injury threshold of Insurance Law §5102(d), but pedestrian and cyclist injuries — fractures above all — tend to satisfy it squarely.

Drivers who hit pedestrians almost never say "I wasn't looking"; they say the person "darted out." Comparative fault under CPLR §1411 means that story, if unrebutted, takes a percentage off your recovery. The rebuttal lives in evidence with a short shelf life: intersection cameras, storefront and doorbell footage, bus dashcams, signal-timing records, and witnesses who scatter. In New York, camera density means the crash was probably recorded by something — the question is whether anyone requested the footage before it was overwritten. If the vehicle was a city bus, taxi, or other public or regulated vehicle, a 90-day notice of claim under GML §50-e may also apply, which moves the real deadline from years to weeks.