New York is a no-fault insurance state. To register a car in New York, you must show you have auto insurance, and the minimum required by law includes no-fault coverage to pay for expenses incurred by any driver or passenger injured in your car or any pedestrian hurt by it, regardless of who’s to blame. Among the expenses covered by no-fault benefits are lost earnings and medical bills, including prescriptions, X-rays, doctor visits, and hospital bills. No-fault coverage pays for expenses of up to $50,000 per person. A pedestrian hurt by a driver must apply for no-fault benefits within 30 days of the accident. We at William Mattar can guide you.

No-fault benefits are meant to help people hurt in auto accidents recover and resume a productive life as quickly as possible. Lawsuits stemming from traffic accidents must allege “serious injury” and seek recompense for economic losses exceeding no-fault benefits and/or non-economic losses such as pain and suffering. If you were seriously injured as a pedestrian, you could file such a lawsuit.

You could receive “reasonable and necessary” accident-related medical and rehabilitation expenses; 80 percent of the wages you lost because of the accident, up to $2,000 monthly for as many as three years; and up to $25 a day, for up to a year, for “reasonable and necessary” expenses such as household help.

The clock starts ticking on impact. You may have only 90 days to file a personal-injury claim and only 10 to submit the first round of paperwork required to pave the way for a lawsuit. Missing any of these deadlines, or statutes of limitation, could cost you the right to seek compensation. An experienced pedestrian accident attorney at Willaim Mattar can advise you.

A lawyer can save you from yourself by, say, making sure you do as your doctor says, don’t sign anything from the insurance company, or fail to pick up prescriptions for injuries sustained in the accident. More important, a lawyer can protect your rights and advocate for you to receive maximum compensation instead of the little-as-possible payout you otherwise would receive from an insurance company.

Yes, at least partly. A driver who hits a pedestrian might, for example, claim that the person on foot was reckless or failed to use walkways or crosswalks. Or the driver could claim the pedestrian was drunk; alcohol was a factor in almost half of the crashes that claimed a pedestrian’s life in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

You can get paid a percentage of lost wages for work time missed if you’re hurt in an accident, but you must meet paperwork deadlines to apply for such benefits. Basic, no-fault insurance in New York State covers as much as 80 percent of lost earnings or $2,000 per month, whichever is less. But you must apply within 30 days.

If you accept an insurance company’s settlement offer before reviewing your options with an attorney, you might receive less than you deserve. An experienced pedestrian-accident attorney can be a strong and aggressive advocate. The lawyers at the Law Offices of William Mattar are not afraid to stand up to the big insurance companies.

With 117 pedestrian fatalities between January and June 2018 and 112 over the same period in 2017, New York compares favorably with other populous states such as Florida and California, according to data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Florida had 330 in the first half of 2018 and 327 in the first half of 2017, while California had 432 and 468. But there are certain places in New York you might want to avoid if you’re on foot. Take, for example, Niagara Falls Boulevard, a three-mile stretch of which has been called one of the deadliest roads in Western New York. Between 2011 and 2018, at least 11 pedestrians were killed or seriously injured on the Boulevard.

Besides not crossing Niagara Falls Boulevard on foot, you mean? You could

• increase your visibility
• cross only at designated crosswalks;
• use the sidewalk instead of the road;
• keep your ears free of earbuds; and
• avoid setting foot in a roadway impaired.