Guides for the injured New Yorker.

The first seventy-two hours after a motor vehicle accident.

The choices made in the first three days after a motor vehicle accident set the litigation posture for the balance of the file. In descending order of importance:

1. Obtain medical evaluation immediately, even if you feel able to continue. Soft-tissue injuries — particularly cervical and lumbar strains — commonly present with delayed onset. A medical record that begins on the date of accident is materially more valuable than a record that begins a week later, both for treatment purposes and for eventual documentation.
2. Report the accident to your own insurance carrier. Your own carrier is required to open the no-fault file that pays your initial medical treatment. Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's carrier without first consulting counsel.
3. Preserve photographs, dashboard camera footage, and any physical evidence. Photographs of the vehicles as they came to rest, of visible injuries, and of the accident scene are recoverable evidence. Once the vehicles have been moved and the client has washed and healed, that evidence is unrecoverable.
4. Do not post about the accident on social media. Any social-media post about the accident, your injuries, your activities, or your emotional state becomes potential defense exhibit material.
5. Consult with counsel before signing anything from any insurance carrier. Release-and-settlement documents, medical authorization forms, and even routine claim-status paperwork can affect substantive rights.

How the New York no-fault system pays for treatment.

Under the New York no-fault regime, every motor-vehicle policy carries $50,000 of Personal Injury Protection coverage. That coverage pays medical treatment reasonably related to the accident, eighty percent of lost wages up to a monthly cap of $2,000, and household-services reimbursement of up to $25 per day. The coverage is paid without regard to fault, meaning the injured person's own carrier pays the initial treatment even if the accident was caused entirely by the other driver.

To trigger the coverage, the injured person must file a no-fault application (Form NF-2, together with the accompanying medical provider forms) within thirty days of the date of loss. Late filing forecloses the coverage. Treating providers who accept no-fault insurance bill the carrier directly; there is no co-payment to the patient. Disputes over authorization or payment are adjudicated in no-fault arbitration under 11 NYCRR §65-4, not in Supreme Court.

The $50,000 no-fault benefit is the floor of medical coverage. Recovery beyond that floor — for pain and suffering, for permanent disability, for continuing medical need beyond the exhausted benefit — is available only through a third-party negligence action against the at-fault driver, and only where the injury satisfies the serious-injury threshold under Insurance Law §5102(d).

Timing your medical treatment.

Continuous medical treatment is the single most important documentation input in an injury file. A treatment record that reflects an initial evaluation, a course of physical therapy or chiropractic care, appropriate diagnostic imaging, and follow-up specialty referral where indicated tells a coherent story about the injury's course. A treatment record with unexplained gaps — a month of no treatment in the middle of a claimed course of care — invites the defense argument that the plaintiff was not, in fact, injured to the extent claimed.

The firm's guidance to injured clients is: treat as your body requires, without regard to litigation timing, but do not stop treating merely because the treatment has become inconvenient. If a course of care is discontinued because it is not helping, the reason should be documented in the medical record. If travel or personal circumstances interrupt treatment, the reason should likewise be documented on return.

Preserving evidence in the days and weeks after an accident.

Beyond the immediate photographs and medical records, several categories of evidence are time-sensitive:

• Surveillance video. Retail establishments, apartment building lobbies, gas stations, and municipal cameras typically overwrite footage on a fourteen- to thirty-day cycle. A preservation demand, sent in writing by counsel, freezes the footage in place.
• Commercial vehicle ECM data. Engine control module data on a tractor is overwritten in the ordinary course of operation, sometimes within days. A preservation letter to the motor carrier and to the driver's employer is essential where the file involves a commercial vehicle.
• Municipal roadway records. Where a road defect contributed to the accident, prior-written-notice statutes require formal notice within short windows. The firm calendars notice deadlines at intake.
• Employer wage records. Where lost wages are claimed, the client's payroll records for the twelve months preceding the accident are the substantive documentation. The firm requests those records early rather than at demand time.