New York metro car accident guide and data hub

Getting hit on a New York street or a Long Island parkway leaves you with a lot to sort out fast: a police report, an insurer, medical bills, and a set of deadlines that started running the moment metal met metal. This page pulls the local crash data and the New York rules into one place so you know where you stand.

How dangerous are New York's streets right now

2025 was, by the official count, the safest year on record for New York City. The city Department of Transportation reported 205 traffic deaths for the year, the fewest since record-keeping began in 1910, down 19% from 253 in 2024 and one below the previous low of 206 set in 2018.¹ Injuries fell too, from 51,540 in 2024 to 47,557, with serious injuries down slightly to 2,947.¹ Traffic deaths have dropped 31% since the city launched Vision Zero in 2014.¹

Safer does not mean safe. The NYPD still logs on the order of 90,000 reported collisions a year across the five boroughs in its open crash dataset, and Brooklyn and Queens consistently record the most of any borough.²³ Behind the record-low death toll sit tens of thousands of injury crashes, each one an insurance claim or a hospital stay for someone.

Statewide the trend points the same direction but unevenly. The New York State DMV reported 681 traffic fatalities from January through October 2025, down from 766 in the same stretch of 2024.⁴ Upstate deaths fell from 490 to 420, while Long Island moved the other way, rising from 103 to 110.⁴ Motorcycle deaths across the state dropped from 157 to 134 for the full year.⁴

The recent gains follow a rough few years. The State Comptroller found 1,175 traffic fatalities in New York in 2022, the highest since 2013, a 25.8% jump from 2019 even as vehicle miles traveled fell about 7%.⁵

Where crashes cluster

New York City's most crash-heavy roads are no secret to its own traffic engineers. The city DOT singled out four wide arterials as Vision Zero "Great Streets" for redesign because of their crash history: Atlantic Avenue, Fourth Avenue, Queens Boulevard, and the Grand Concourse.⁶ Queens Boulevard earned the nickname "Boulevard of Death" over decades of pedestrian fatalities. The Grand Concourse in the Bronx ran 13 pedestrian killed-or-seriously-injured cases per mile between 2009 and 2013, one of the worst rates the city measured.⁶

Contributing factors in the NYPD dataset repeat year after year. Driver inattention and distraction is the single most frequently cited factor on New York crash reports, followed by failure to yield the right of way at intersections and following too closely.²³ Speed shows up on the deadliest crashes even when it appears less often on the total count.

What the law requires after a crash

New York ties reporting to a dollar figure. Under Vehicle and Traffic Law section 605, you must file a Report of Motor Vehicle Accident (form MV-104) with the DMV whenever a crash injures or kills someone or causes more than $1,000 in property damage to any one person, including yourself.⁷ Skip it and the DMV can suspend your license until the report is on file.⁷ If anyone is hurt or killed, you also have to notify the police right away, separate from the DMV form.⁷

Then there is the insurance clock, which is shorter than most people expect.

No-fault, and the deadline that catches people

New York is a no-fault state. After most crashes your own auto policy pays first, regardless of who caused it, through Personal Injury Protection. Basic economic loss covers up to $50,000 per person: medical bills, plus lost earnings up to $2,000 a month for as long as three years, plus $25 a day for other reasonable expenses for up to a year.⁸

The catch is the notice window. Under the state's no-fault regulations you have to give your insurer written notice of the claim within 30 days of the accident.⁹ Miss it without a good reason and the insurer can deny benefits you were entitled to. A filed MV-104 can count as that written notice, which is one more reason to file promptly.⁹

When you can sue, and the serious injury threshold

No-fault covers your economic losses, but it does not pay for pain and suffering. To recover those damages from the at-fault driver, Insurance Law section 5104 requires that you cleared the "serious injury" threshold.¹⁰ Section 5102(d) defines it, and the categories are specific: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, a bone fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ or system, a permanent consequential limitation, or a significant limitation of use of a body function or system.⁸ Soft-tissue complaints that fully resolve often fall short, which is why medical documentation from the start matters so much.

If your case does clear that bar, you generally have three years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit under CPLR section 214(5).¹¹ Claims against a public entity, such as a city bus or a road-condition case against a state agency, carry separate and much shorter deadlines, so those are worth checking right away.

Pull your own numbers, and find help

You do not have to take anyone's word for the local picture. NYC Open Data publishes the full NYPD collision file down to the intersection and contributing factor, updated monthly.² The DMV and the State Department of Health post crash and injury statistics by county.¹²⁴ ThatCarHitMe.com compiles those government feeds into free, monthly crash-data reports you can read for your area.¹³

If your injuries clear the threshold and you are weighing a claim, you can compare New York attorneys in the legal directory.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. New York City Department of Transportation, "Traffic Deaths Reach All-time Low: New York Ends Year With Fewest Fatalities Ever Recorded" (2026). https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-reach-all-time-low.shtml

2. NYC Open Data, "Motor Vehicle Collisions - Crashes" (New York City Police Department). https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/Motor-Vehicle-Collisions-Crashes/h9gi-nx95

3. New York City Police Department, "Traffic Data - Collisions." https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/traffic-data/traffic-data-collision.page

4. 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

5. Office of the New York State Comptroller, "DiNapoli: Motor Vehicle Fatalities Rise Sharply in NY" (June 2024). https://www.osc.ny.gov/press/releases/2024/06/dinapoli-motor-vehicle-fatalities-rise-sharply-ny

6. New York City Department of Transportation Strategic Plan, "Transform high-crash arterial roads into Vision Zero Great Streets." https://www.nycdotplan.nyc/transform-high-crash-arterial-roads-vision-zero-great-streets

7. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, "File a Motorist Crash (Accident) Report" (Vehicle and Traffic Law section 605). https://dmv.ny.gov/records/file-a-motorist-crash-accident-report

8. New York Insurance Law section 5102 (New York State Senate). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ISC/5102

9. New York State Department of Financial Services, "FAQ: Consumer Questions About No-Fault Insurance." https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/auto_insurance/nofault_faqs

10. New York Insurance Law section 5104 (New York State Senate). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ISC/5104

11. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214 (New York State Senate). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CVP/214

12. New York State Department of Health, "Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Statistics." https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/prevention/injury_prevention/traffic/county_of_residence.htm

13. ThatCarHitMe.com, "U.S. Car Accident Statistics & Traffic Crash Data Reports." https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data