New York Truck Accident Lawyer

Where do serious truck crashes happen in New York?

They cluster on the freight routes into and around New York City and on the long upstate interstates. Both settings produce severe injuries for different reasons.

Downstate, the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Van Wyck and the Long Island Expressway carry trucks bound for the port terminals, the Hunts Point food markets, airport cargo areas and countless warehouses. Stop-and-go traffic leads to rear-end crashes, lane-change sideswipes and underride collisions. On city streets, large trucks making right turns strike cyclists and pedestrians in the driver's blind spot.

Upstate, the New York State Thruway, I-81, I-84 and I-88 carry long-haul freight through farm country and lake-effect snow belts. Long hours, winter whiteouts and steep grades in the Catskills and Southern Tier raise the risk of jackknife and pileup crashes.

Why do trucks keep hitting low bridges on New York parkways?

Commercial vehicles are generally banned from New York parkways, many of which have very low overpasses. Drivers who follow car GPS directions or ignore posted signs can strike a bridge, shear off the trailer roof, and cause chain-reaction crashes behind them.

These crashes show how much depends on the carrier's training and routing practices. A carrier that does not train drivers on New York's restrictions, or that gives them consumer navigation tools rather than truck routing, may share responsibility for what happens next.

Who can be held responsible for a New York truck crash?

Usually several companies, not only the driver. Our team looks at the whole chain of businesses behind the load.

• The motor carrier and its safety managers
• A freight broker that chose an unsafe carrier
• The shipper or warehouse that loaded the trailer
• A leasing company or maintenance vendor
• A general contractor that directed a dump truck or concrete truck on a construction project
• The manufacturer of a defective component, a possible product liability claim

Federal rules limit how long interstate drivers may drive and require inspections, maintenance and drug and alcohol testing. Electronic logs, engine data, dispatch messages and dashcam video can show whether those rules were followed. We send preservation letters right away, because carriers may overwrite data once a truck goes back into service.

How do no-fault and the serious injury threshold apply to truck crashes?

They apply the same way they do in car crashes. Your no-fault benefits pay first, and you can sue for pain and suffering once the injury meets the threshold.

In practice, the threshold is less often disputed in truck cases because the injuries tend to be severe, including fractures, spinal injuries and traumatic brain injuries. The bigger fights usually concern fault and the value of future losses, such as long-term care and lost earning ability. Our catastrophic injuries page explains how those future costs are documented.

How is fault shared when several companies are involved?

New York's pure comparative fault rule lets a jury assign a percentage to every party, including you. Your recovery is reduced only by your own share.

Imagine a box truck that changes lanes into a car on the Long Island Expressway. The jury values the driver's damages at $900,000. It finds the truck driver and carrier 75% at fault, the broker 15% for hiring a carrier with a poor safety record, and the injured driver 10% for drifting partly out of lane. The injured driver recovers $810,000. Additional rules can affect how that amount is collected among defendants, so naming every responsible company matters from the start.

What if a city truck or contractor working for the city hit me?

A crash with a city sanitation truck, a public transit vehicle or another municipal vehicle generally requires a notice of claim within 90 days. The lawsuit itself must follow within a period much shorter than the usual 3 years.

Private contractors working for the city are not always covered by that notice rule, but they may have their own insurance and defenses. Identifying the owner and operator of the vehicle early avoids missing a deadline.

1. Photograph the truck, company name, USDOT number and any municipal markings.
2. Get the police report number and the names of responding officers.
3. File your no-fault application within 30 days.
4. Call us so we can send preservation letters and check notice deadlines.

Read our New York car accident page for more on no-fault, or our New York overview for the state's general rules. We offer a free case review and charge no fee unless we win.