New York State Car Accident Laws: No-Fault, Deadlines, and Penalties

New York car accident laws combine a no-fault insurance system with traditional fault-based rules. Your own insurer pays your medical bills and lost wages up to $50,000 per person no matter who caused the crash, but fault still decides who pays for vehicle damage, who can be sued for serious injuries, and who faces criminal charges. On top of that, the state imposes specific reporting duties, minimum insurance requirements, and strict deadlines for going to court.

How No-Fault Coverage Works

Every motor vehicle liability policy in New York must include first-party benefits, usually called Personal Injury Protection or no-fault coverage.¹ After a crash you file with your own insurer, not the other driver’s, and the insurer pays “basic economic loss” up to $50,000 per person.²

Inside that $50,000 ceiling, lost earnings are capped at $2,000 per month for up to three years from the date of the accident. Medical expenses have no separate monthly limit but count against the same total. The policy also pays a $2,000 death benefit to the estate of a covered person killed in a crash.¹

The trade-off for getting these benefits quickly and without a fault fight is a limit on lawsuits. You cannot sue the other driver for pain and suffering or other non-economic losses unless your injuries clear the state’s “serious injury” threshold.³ Property damage claims are outside no-fault entirely and can always be pursued against the at-fault driver.

When You Can Sue for More

Insurance Law 5102(d) defines serious injury as one that results in death, dismemberment, a fracture, significant disfigurement, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body part or system, a permanent consequential limitation of a body organ or member, or a significant limitation of use of a body function or system. It also includes a catch-all: a medically documented injury that prevents you from performing substantially all of your usual daily activities for at least 90 out of the 180 days following the crash.²

If your injuries meet one of those categories, you can bring a negligence lawsuit against the at-fault driver for damages the no-fault system does not cover, including pain and suffering.³ A common mistake is assuming the no-fault check settles everything, then discovering later that a lawsuit was possible after the deadline has passed.

Required Insurance Coverage

New York requires every vehicle to carry liability insurance at these minimums:⁴

Bodily injury for one person: $25,000 per crash, $50,000 if the injury results in death.
Bodily injury for two or more people: $50,000 per crash, $100,000 for deaths.
Property damage: $10,000 per crash.

Every policy must also include uninsured motorist coverage of at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident to protect you against drivers with no insurance. Supplemental underinsured motorist coverage is optional and can be bought up to your own policy’s bodily injury limits, capped at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident.⁵

What You Must Do After a Crash

If a crash involves any injury, any death, or property damage of more than $1,000 to any one person’s property, every driver involved must file a written report with the DMV within ten days. This duty comes from Vehicle and Traffic Law 605 and applies whether or not you were at fault.⁶

The form is the MV-104, and it’s separate from anything the police fill out. It asks for the date, time, and location of the crash, a description of what happened, and information on each driver and vehicle. You file it yourself with the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. If someone was injured or killed, you also have to notify law enforcement right away, and responding officers will write their own crash report.

Skipping the DMV report is a misdemeanor. The Commissioner can also suspend your license, your registration, or both until you file it.⁶

Leaving the Scene

Vehicle and Traffic Law 600 requires you to stop after a crash, show your license and insurance card, and give your name, address, and insurance information to the other driver and to any responding officer. If anyone is injured, you must notify law enforcement as soon as physically possible.⁷

The penalties climb with the harm involved:

Failing only to exchange information after an injury crash: Class B misdemeanor on a first offense, with a fine of $250 to $500. A second offense is a Class A misdemeanor, fine $500 to $1,000.
Leaving the scene of an injury crash: Class A misdemeanor, fine $750 to $1,000. A second conviction is a Class E felony, fine $1,000 to $3,000.
Leaving the scene of a fatal crash: Class D felony, fine $2,000 to $5,000.

Those fines sit on top of any jail or prison time the court imposes for the underlying misdemeanor or felony.⁷

How Fault Is Decided

New York uses pure comparative negligence. Under CPLR 1411, your share of fault reduces your recovery by that percentage, but it never bars you from recovering entirely. A driver 40 percent at fault in a $100,000 crash can still collect $60,000. Even a driver who is 99 percent responsible can recover the remaining one percent from the other side.⁸

Proving fault usually starts with the police report, which documents road conditions, driver statements, and any tickets issued. Witnesses fill in what officers didn’t see. In contested cases, accident reconstruction experts examine skid marks, damage patterns, and crash dynamics. Modern vehicles also carry event data recorders that log vehicle speed, throttle position, and brake or ABS activity in the seconds around a triggering event like airbag deployment. That snapshot is hard to argue with.

Traffic violations carry particular weight. New York courts recognize that breaking a traffic rule, such as running a red light or failing to yield, can amount to negligence in itself. A jury can find negligence based on the violation alone, without separate proof that the driver’s conduct was unreasonable. The other side can still argue the violation didn’t actually cause the crash, but the burden shifts significantly.

Deadlines to File a Lawsuit

You have three years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit in New York.⁹ Miss it and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case no matter how strong it is. The clock starts on the day of the crash, not the day the full extent of your injuries becomes clear.

Wrongful death claims have a shorter window. The personal representative of the deceased person’s estate has two years from the date of death to file. If a criminal case is pending against the same defendant, the representative gets at least one year from the end of that criminal proceeding, even if the original two-year period has already run out.¹⁰ The lawsuit is brought on behalf of the decedent’s distributees, typically the surviving spouse, children, and other close relatives who would inherit under intestacy rules. Recoverable damages generally include lost income, funeral expenses, and the loss of support and services.

Criminal Charges from a Crash

When impaired driving, reckless conduct, or a death is involved, a crash moves from insurance dispute to criminal court.

Vehicular Assault

Vehicular assault in the second degree applies when a driver causes serious physical injury while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It is a Class E felony with a maximum of four years in prison.¹¹¹²

The charge becomes vehicular assault in the first degree, a Class D felony with up to seven years, when aggravating factors are present: a blood alcohol level of .18 or higher, driving on a license suspended for a prior DWI, a DWI conviction within the past ten years, or injuring more than one person.¹³¹²

Aggravated vehicular assault is a Class C felony punishable by up to 15 years. It requires both reckless driving and a second-degree vehicular assault, combined with one of the same aggravating factors.¹⁴¹²

Vehicular Manslaughter

When impaired driving causes a death, the baseline charge is vehicular manslaughter in the second degree, a Class D felony with a maximum of seven years.¹⁵¹² Vehicular manslaughter in the first degree is a Class C felony with up to 15 years. It applies when the same kinds of aggravators are present: a BAC of .18 or higher, a suspended license from a prior DWI, a DWI conviction in the last decade, killing more than one person, or a prior conviction for a vehicular offense.¹⁶

Reckless Driving

Reckless driving is a misdemeanor and doesn’t require alcohol or drug impairment. It covers operating a vehicle in a way that unreasonably interferes with the free use of a public road or unreasonably endangers other people using it.¹⁷ A conviction adds five points to your driving record.¹⁸ As a misdemeanor it can also bring jail time and fines set by the court.

Taxes on a Settlement

Settlements and awards for physical injuries or physical sickness are generally not taxable, and the same treatment applies to emotional distress damages that stem directly from a physical injury. If you deducted related medical expenses on a prior return and got a tax benefit from doing so, you must include the portion of the settlement reimbursing those expenses as other income.¹⁹

Emotional distress damages that don’t come from a physical injury are taxable, even when the distress produces physical symptoms like insomnia or headaches. Punitive damages are always taxable, including when they’re part of a settlement for physical injuries, and are reported as other income on Schedule 1.¹⁹

1
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5103 – Entitlement to First Party Benefits
2
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5102 – Definitions
3
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5104 – Causes of Action for Personal Injury
4
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. New York State Insurance Requirements
5
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 3420
6
New York State Senate. New York Vehicle and Traffic Law 605 – Report Required Upon Accident
7
New York State Senate. New York Vehicle and Traffic Law 600 – Leaving Scene of an Incident Without Reporting
8
New York State Senate. New York Code CPLR 1411 – Damages Recoverable When Contributory Negligence or Assumption of Risk Is Established
9
New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules 214 – Actions to Be Commenced Within Three Years
10
New York State Senate. New York Estates, Powers and Trusts Law 5-4.1 – Action by Personal Representative for Wrongful Act, Neglect or Default
11
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 120.03 – Vehicular Assault in the Second Degree
12
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 70.00 – Sentence of Imprisonment for Felony
13
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 120.04 – Vehicular Assault in the First Degree
14
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 120.04-a – Aggravated Vehicular Assault
15
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 125.12 – Vehicular Manslaughter in the Second Degree
16
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 125.13 – Vehicular Manslaughter in the First Degree
17
New York State Senate. New York Vehicle and Traffic Law 1212 – Reckless Driving
18
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. The New York State Driver Point System
19
Internal Revenue Service. Settlements – Taxability