Buffalo car accident guide and data hub

If you were just hit on the Kensington or clipped turning off Delaware Avenue, two questions land right away: who pays for the car and the hospital bills, and how long you have to act. A third one, what you are legally required to file, comes with a deadline most people don't know about. This page pulls together the local crash data, the Erie County roads where collisions concentrate, and the New York laws that answer those questions. Every figure comes from a state agency, the state legislature, or city and federal records, and each is cited so you can check it yourself.

What the local numbers show

Road deaths in New York dropped in 2025. Between January and October, 681 people were killed statewide, down from 766 in the same months of 2024, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.¹ Almost all of that gain was upstate, where deaths fell from 490 to 420, and the DMV credited stepped-up enforcement on impaired driving, distracted driving, and speeding.¹ Buffalo and the rest of Erie County sit inside that upstate count.

One good year doesn't erase the pattern. Across Erie and Niagara counties, 88 people died in 78 fatal crashes in 2022, based on federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System records compiled by the nonprofit newsroom Investigative Post.² Fatal crashes are only the tip of it. New York counts a crash as "reportable" whenever someone is hurt or killed, or when the damage to any one person's property tops $1,000, so most Buffalo collisions that look minor still qualify.³

To see how your own corner rates, the City of Buffalo publishes an open dataset of injury-accident calls by intersection, built from Buffalo Police records and running back to 2006.⁴ It is call-level data rather than a verified crash tally, but it shows plainly where officers keep getting sent.

Buffalo roads with a safety history

A handful of corridors carry both the traffic and the crash reports. The Kensington Expressway (Route 33) runs below grade through the East Side and moves roughly 80,000 vehicles a day.⁵ It replaced the Olmsted-designed Humboldt Parkway in the 1950s and 1960s and split the neighborhoods around it. The state now has up to $1 billion committed to cap a stretch between East Ferry Street and Best Street and rebuild parkland on top. The cap is meant to restore a link toward Delaware Park and what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Park.⁵

The Scajaquada Expressway (Route 198) is the short highway that ties the 33 to the Niagara Thruway, cutting through Delaware Park. In May 2015, a car crossed the median there and killed three-year-old Maksym Sugorovskiy as he walked with his family; his mother and sister were badly hurt.⁶ The state Department of Transportation cut the speed limit on the 198 from 50 to 30 mph after that crash, and it holds at 30 today.⁶

The busiest and fastest local stretch is Interstate 90. The 6.5 miles of Thruway between Exit 50 and Exit 53 carry about 132,000 vehicles a day, and a $64 million state repaving and safety project is running there through late 2027, including raised clearance on the Route 33 overpass to stop truck strikes.⁷ Speed is the hazard the state itself flagged: during the first phase of that work, automated cameras caught nearly 13,000 speeding violations in the zone, one clocked at 85 mph in a 45 mph limit.⁷ The Buffalo Skyway (Route 5), the elevated waterfront route running 3.5 miles between Tifft Street and Church Street, is under its own long-running redesign study.⁸

What New York requires after a crash

State law puts a clock on you. Under Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 605, if a crash injured or killed anyone or did more than $1,000 in property damage, the driver has to file a written report with the DMV within ten days.³ The form is the MV-104.⁹ Skip it and the DMV can suspend your driving privilege until the report is on file.⁹

Get the police crash report too. Buffalo Police, the Erie County Sheriff, or the State Police will have written one if officers came to the scene, and that report is where your insurer and any attorney start. If you can do it safely, photograph the vehicles, the intersection, and any injuries before you leave.

No-fault, your bills, and when you can sue

New York is a no-fault state, and that decides who covers your first round of bills. Your own insurer pays regardless of fault, up to $50,000 per person in "basic economic loss" under Insurance Law Section 5102.¹⁰ That amount covers medical care, lost earnings of up to $2,000 a month for as long as three years, and up to $25 a day in other reasonable expenses for a year; drivers can buy an added $25,000 of optional coverage on top of it.¹⁰

No-fault also limits when you can sue the other driver for pain and suffering. Under Insurance Law Section 5104, that kind of claim is only available if you have a "serious injury," and Section 5102(d) draws the line narrowly: death, dismemberment, a fracture, significant disfigurement, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body part or system, a permanent or significant limitation of use, or an injury that keeps you from your usual daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash.¹⁰¹¹ A sprained wrist that heals in a month usually won't clear it; a broken bone will.

There is a hard deadline to sue, as well. New York gives you three years from the date of the crash to bring a personal injury claim under CPLR Section 214.¹² Claims against a public body, such as the city or the state, run on far shorter notice periods, so those move fast.

Getting help

If your injuries are real and the bills are stacking up, talk to a New York attorney who handles motor vehicle cases before you give a recorded statement or take an early settlement offer. You can start with the thatcarhitme.com legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, "New York State Sees Sharp Drop in Fatal Crashes." https://dmv.ny.gov/news/new-york-state-sees-sharp-drop-in-fatal-crashes

2. Investigative Post, "Infographic: Fatal crashes in Buffalo Niagara" (Aug. 9, 2024), compiling NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System data. https://www.investigativepost.org/2024/08/09/infographic-fatal-crashes-in-buffalo-niagara/

3. New York Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 605 (report of accident). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/VAT/605

4. OpenData Buffalo, "Accident with Injury by Intersection." https://data.buffalony.gov/Public-Safety/Accident-with-Injury-by-Intersection/cjvi-pdpv

5. Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, "Governor Hochul Announces Start of Public Engagement Process for the Kensington Expressway Project in the City of Buffalo." https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-start-public-engagement-process-kensington-expressway-project-city

6. Office of U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, press release urging reclassification of the Scajaquada Expressway (Route 198). https://www.schumer.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/schumer-says-converting-scajaquada-high-speed-expressway-to-parkway-with-calmer-traffic-patterns-crosswalks-stop-signs-and-street-lights-would-increase-safety-urges-feds-to-approve-plan-to-reclassify-road-as-a-parkway

7. Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, "Governor Hochul Announces Work is Underway on $64 Million Pavement Improvement and Safety Enhancement Project on Interstate 90 in Erie County." https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-work-underway-64-million-pavement-improvement-and-safety-enhancement

8. Federal Permitting Dashboard, "NYS Route 5 (Buffalo Skyway) Project." https://www.permits.performance.gov/permitting-project/dot-projects/nys-route-5-buffalo-skyway-project

9. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, "File a Motorist Crash (Accident) Report." https://dmv.ny.gov/records/file-a-motorist-crash-accident-report

10. New York Insurance Law Section 5102 (definitions of basic economic loss and serious injury). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ISC/5102

11. New York Insurance Law Section 5104 (right of recovery for non-economic loss). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ISC/5104

12. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Section 214 (three-year limit for personal injury actions). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CVP/214