Brooklyn Car Accident Lawyer

Are you looking for a car accident lawyer in Brooklyn?

At The Edelsteins, Faegenburg, & Blyakher LLP, we are trusted car accident lawyers serving clients across Brooklyn for more than 85 years.

If you were hurt in a car crash in Brooklyn, we are here to help you. Our Brooklyn, NY car accident lawyer has represented injured New Yorkers since 1937. Families have relied on us for three generations, and we handle the insurer while you focus on treatment. We prepare every case as though a Kings County jury will decide it. Reach out for a free consultation and we will explain where your claim stands.

Car Accident Lawyer Brooklyn, NY

What is a car accident case? It is a civil claim that holds a negligent driver, and sometimes the vehicle’s owner or the driver’s employer, financially responsible for the injuries a collision caused. In New York the claim moves through the No-Fault system first. A lawsuit for the full extent of your losses comes after.

Brooklyn recorded 63 traffic deaths in 2025, more than any other borough, according to the New York City Department of Transportation. Behind that figure sit thousands of injury crashes on Atlantic Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, and the Belt Parkway that never make the news. A car accident attorney in Brooklyn reads the police report, the vehicle damage, and the medical file the way an insurer will, then builds the claim to answer each argument before the other side raises it.

Types of Car Accident Cases We Handle in Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s street grid mixes six-lane arterials, narrow residential blocks, and two of the busiest highways in the city. Nationally, distracted drivers were involved in crashes that killed 3,208 people in 2024. Our Brooklyn car accident attorneys match the investigation to the type of collision.

• Rear-end collisions. Stop-and-go traffic on the Belt Parkway and sudden braking on Ocean Parkway produce whiplash, herniated discs, and concussions. Fault usually lands on the trailing driver, but insurers still fight over how serious the injury is. Medical documentation decides those disputes.
• Intersection crashes. Left turns across traffic and red-light running cause hard, side-angle impacts. Footage from nearby businesses and traffic cameras often settles the right-of-way question.
• Head-on collisions. A driver who drifts into oncoming traffic, often while impaired or drowsy, causes some of the worst injuries we see. We document the roadway and both vehicles before anything is repaired.
• Hit-and-runs. When the driver flees, your own uninsured motorist coverage may become the main source of recovery. We work to identify the driver and pursue every available policy.
• Drunk driving accidents. An intoxicated driver faces criminal charges, and the civil case proceeds on its own track. A bar or restaurant that kept serving a visibly drunk patron can sometimes share responsibility.
• Truck accidents. Collisions with box trucks and tractor-trailers bring larger insurance policies and a trucking company that begins its own investigation within hours. We move just as quickly.
• Motorcycle accidents. Riders suffer severe injuries and face an assumption that they must have been speeding. We reconstruct the crash to answer that bias with evidence.
• Pedestrian accidents. People struck in crosswalks and on sidewalks hold full rights against the driver. Our firm recovered $5,500,000 for a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle in a crosswalk.
• Uninsured and underinsured driver claims. Many drivers carry only minimum coverage, and some carry none. A claim against your own policy can close the gap, though your insurer will treat you like any other claimant.
• Rideshare, taxi, and for-hire vehicle crashes. Which policy applies depends on whether the app was on, whether a passenger was aboard, and who owned the car. We sort that out before the first demand goes out.

Why Choose The Edelsteins, Faegenburg, & Blyakher LLP as My Car Accident Lawyer in Brooklyn, NY?

Trial Lawyers With Decades in Kings County Courtrooms

Paul J. Edelstein and Glenn K. Faegenburg both handle motor vehicle cases for the firm. Each graduated from Brooklyn Law School, Glenn earning his J.D. in 1990, and both belong to NYSTLA, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. Paul is also a member of the Brooklyn Bar Association and the American Bar Association and volunteered with the Trial Lawyers Care 9/11 Project. Glenn has been recognized by Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers. Our personal injury lawyer in Brooklyn, NY has the courtroom background and experience that makes a difference in our client’s cases.

Results in Motor Vehicle Cases

Our attorneys have recovered more than $131 million for injured clients. Several of those recoveries came from crashes on New York roads:

• $4,350,000 for a driver struck head-on by an intoxicated motorist
• $2,905,000 for a taxi passenger injured in a motor vehicle collision
• $1,850,000 for a driver who sustained back injuries when a street sweeper hit his car
• $1,500,000 jury verdict for a man whose car was struck by a tractor-trailer

Past results turn on their own facts and do not predict the outcome of another case. They do show the size of the cases our Brooklyn car crash lawyers are accustomed to handling.

What Is Important To Understand About Car Accident Cases?

Damages, Liability, and Compensation for Car Accident Cases

Liability in a crash case rests on negligence: the other driver owed you reasonable care, failed to provide it, and that failure caused your injury. Damages are the dollar value of what the crash took from you. In a Brooklyn car accident claim they commonly include:

• Hospital, surgical, therapy, and future medical costs
• Wages lost during recovery and reduced earning capacity afterward
• Pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life
• Repair or replacement of your vehicle

Catastrophic collisions produce spinal cord injuries and brain trauma whose costs run for decades, and the damages calculation must account for every year of it. Our Brooklyn, NY car accident lawyers build that long-term picture early.

Fault is now measured differently in car cases than in other injury claims. Under New York’s comparative negligence rule, amended in 2026, a person injured in a motor vehicle crash who is more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing. At 50 percent or less, the award is reduced by that share. Being partly at fault does not end a claim, but the fault percentage carries far more weight than it did before the change.

Important Aspects of a Car Accident Case

• Your own auto insurer pays No-Fault benefits for medical bills and a portion of lost wages, up to $50,000 in basic economic loss under the Insurance Law, regardless of who caused the crash.
• Suing for pain and suffering requires a “serious injury” as the statute defines it, such as a fracture, significant disfigurement, or a permanent or significant limitation. The 2026 amendments removed one former category, so the threshold now depends on objective medical proof more than ever.
• Insurers record everything. When an adjuster calls, a casual comment about feeling fine can resurface months later as evidence against your injury claim.

What Is the Car Accident Case Timeline?

Most Brooklyn crash cases take between several months and a few years, and the timeline depends more on the injury than on the court calendar. The major stages look like this:

• Medical treatment and the No-Fault application, which must reach your insurer within a short window after the crash
• Investigation: the NYPD collision report, camera footage, vehicle data, and witness statements
• A demand to the at-fault driver’s insurer once your medical picture is clear
• A lawsuit, filed in Kings County Supreme Court if the insurer will not pay fairly, followed by document exchange and depositions
• Settlement or trial

New York gives you three years from the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. Claims involving a city bus, a sanitation truck, or another government vehicle carry much shorter notice deadlines. A car accident attorney in Brooklyn, NY tracks each of those dates from the day you retain the firm.

What to Bring to Your Car Accident Consultation

Bring what you have, and don’t postpone the meeting over a missing document. We can obtain the rest when we need to.

• The NYPD collision report or the report number
• Photos of the vehicles, the scene, and your injuries
• Medical records, discharge papers, and bills to date
• Your auto insurance declarations page and any letters from insurers
• Contact information for witnesses and notes on any evidence you noticed at the scene

The consultation is free and usually takes less than an hour. We will tell you whether the case is worth pursuing, what it may be worth, and what happens next. Some delayed symptoms appear days after a collision, so if you are still in treatment there is no reason to wait for a diagnosis.

Most Dangerous Roads and Intersections for Car Accidents in Brooklyn

A handful of corridors account for a large share of the borough’s serious crashes.

• Atlantic Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Linden Boulevard, and the Belt Parkway carry heavy truck, bus, and commuter traffic and see a steady stream of serious collisions.
• On Conduit Avenue in East New York, the city counted more than 40 severe injuries and five deaths in five years along the stretch between Atlantic Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard.
• The city has also begun a safety redesign of western Atlantic Avenue after years of crashes there.

After a crash, request your NYPD collision report from the precinct within 30 days; after that, copies come from the state DMV. Lawsuits arising from Brooklyn collisions are generally filed in Kings County Supreme Court, Civil Term, at 360 Adams Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

Reach Out to The Edelsteins, Faegenburg, & Blyakher LLP to Schedule a Consultation

A serious crash raises questions about medical bills, lost income, and an insurer that has already started building its file. We will review how the collision happened, explain your options under the No-Fault system, and give you a thorough review of what your claim may be worth. Contact us to schedule a free consultation with a Brooklyn car accident attorney.

Car Accident Statistics in Brooklyn, NY

Brooklyn produces more collisions than any other borough, and the monthly police numbers show it. Our Brooklyn car accident lawyers read those reports for a practical reason. The contributing factors the NYPD records, distraction, tailgating, failure to yield, are the same facts an insurer argues about when it decides what a claim is worth.

• The NYPD’s collision report for August 2026 counted 2,169 crashes in Brooklyn in a single month, 1,031 of them involving an injury or death, the highest of any borough.
• In that same month, Brooklyn officers listed driver inattention or distraction as a factor 622 times, followed by following too closely (144) and failure to yield (129).
• NHTSA’s early estimate puts national traffic deaths at 36,640 in 2025, down 6.7 percent from 2024 and the second-lowest fatality rate ever recorded.
• CDC injury data shows more than 2.8 million emergency department visits for crash injuries in 2023, with fatal crashes alone costing over $457 billion that year.

Those figures change monthly and say nothing about the driver who hit you. A car accident attorney in Brooklyn, NY uses them for context, then proves the case with the police report, the medical file, and the corner store’s camera footage.

Mistakes That Can Damage Your Car Accident Claim

Most of the harm to a Brooklyn car accident case happens in the first few weeks.

1. Waiting to see a doctor. Adjusters treat a gap in treatment as proof the injury was minor or came from somewhere else. Get examined the same day if you can, then follow the plan your doctor writes. Missed appointments become exhibits.
2. Giving a recorded statement. The other driver’s insurer will call within days and ask you to walk through what happened. You aren’t required to do it. Every word is transcribed and compared against your later testimony.
3. Posting about the crash. A photo at a barbecue two weeks after the collision will be used to argue you’re not in pain. Social media posts are the first thing a defense firm requests.
4. Accepting the first offer. Early offers arrive before the full extent of the injury is known. Once you sign, the claim is closed, even if surgery is recommended a month later. Signing a release should be the last step, not the first.
5. Skipping the police report. Without an NYPD report, fault becomes your word against the other driver’s. If officers didn’t respond, file one at the precinct.
6. Discussing fault with the other side. Apologizing at the scene, or telling an adjuster you “didn’t see” the other car, hands them the comparative negligence argument. Since the 2026 change, that argument can end a Brooklyn, NY car accident claim entirely.
7. Missing the No-Fault deadline. Your own insurer must receive the application within a short window after the crash. Miss it and your medical bills and lost wages may be denied outright, regardless of who caused the collision.
8. Treating the insurer’s exam casually. The doctor at an independent medical examination is not there to treat you. Arrive on time, describe every symptom accurately, and don’t minimize.
9. Assuming a small crash means no case. Bumper damage and a herniated disc can coexist. A minor car accident deserves a review before you decide there is nothing to pursue.
10. Waiting to call a lawyer. New York’s statute of limitations gives you three years, but evidence does not wait. Camera footage is overwritten in days and witnesses move. A Brooklyn car crash lawyer retained early protects what a late filing cannot.

Brooklyn Car Accident Lawyer FAQs

How much does a car accident attorney in Brooklyn cost?

The consultation is free. Personal injury cases in New York are typically handled on contingency, so the fee comes out of the recovery at the end rather than out of your pocket up front. We explain exactly how you pay a lawyer before you sign anything.

How long do I have to file a lawsuit after a Brooklyn car accident?

Three years from the date of the crash for most injury claims. Claims against the City of New York, the MTA, or another public entity carry a notice deadline.

Does the 2026 comparative negligence law apply to a crash that happened before it passed?

It can. The amendment was signed in late May 2026 and applies to motor vehicle lawsuits filed on or after that date, even where the collision happened earlier. A plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault now recovers nothing. At 50 percent or less, the award is reduced by that share, as before.

Do I need a lawyer for a rear-end collision in Brooklyn?

Fault in a rear-end collision usually lands on the trailing driver, so the fight shifts to the injury. Insurers argue whiplash resolves in weeks and offer accordingly. A lawyer documents the diagnosis, the treatment, and the limitations, then values the claim on that record.

What happens if I’m hit by a city bus, sanitation truck, or police vehicle?

The claim runs against a government entity. That means a notice of claim on a short deadline, a 50-h hearing where the City questions you under oath, and then a lawsuit in Kings County Supreme Court. The paperwork is unforgiving. Our Brooklyn car accident attorneys serve the notice the week we’re retained.

Will I have to give a deposition?

Probably, if the case is filed. A deposition is sworn testimony taken in a conference room rather than a courtroom, with the defense lawyer asking questions and a court reporter recording every answer. We prepare you beforehand and sit beside you throughout.

Should I accept the insurance company’s first offer?

Rarely. First offers arrive before your doctors know whether you will need surgery or how long the limitations will last. Common insurance company tactics include praising your honesty, then pressing you to close the file quickly. The number has to be right the first time.

Can a passenger file a car accident claim in Brooklyn, NY?

Yes. A passenger almost never shares fault, so the claim is usually cleaner than the driver’s. You may have claims against the driver of the car you were in, the other driver, or both. Your No-Fault benefits come from the policy on the vehicle you occupied.

What if a head or back injury didn’t show up right away?

Report every symptom to your doctor, even ones that seem minor. A concussion can present as headaches and fog days later, and a traumatic brain injury claim depends on that early documentation. The same is true of back injuries that stiffen over a week. Late reporting isn’t fatal to a case, but it gives the insurer an argument.

Will my Brooklyn car accident case go to trial?

Most settle, but not until the insurer believes we will try it. Paul J. Edelstein and Glenn K. Faegenburg prepare every motor vehicle case for a Kings County jury, which is why offers tend to improve as the trial date approaches. If the number isn’t fair, we pick the jury.

Important Resources for Brooklyn Car Accident Cases

What Are Important New York Legal Resources for Car Accident Cases?

New York’s injury statutes are published by the State Senate, and the sections below govern the deadline, fault, and damages in a Brooklyn, NY car accident claim.

• CPLR 214 sets the three-year statute of limitations for most personal injury lawsuits in New York.
• CPLR 1411 governs comparative negligence, including the 2026 subsection that bars recovery for motor vehicle plaintiffs more than 50 percent at fault.
• EPTL 5-4.1 gives a personal representative two years from the date of death to bring a wrongful death action.
• New York allows recovery of economic damages such as medical costs and lost earnings alongside non-economic damages for pain and suffering, and the types of compensation available depend on the injury and the proof.

Important Local Resources for Brooklyn Car Accident Cases

These are the agencies and hospitals our clients most often deal with after a Brooklyn collision. We are not affiliated with any of them and do not endorse their services. The list is provided for convenience only.

• NYPD 72nd Precinct: (718) 965-6311, covering Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, for collision reports near our office.
• NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn: (718) 630-7000, a Level I trauma center on 55th Street.
• Maimonides Medical Center: (718) 283-6000, a Level I adult trauma center in Borough Park.
• NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County: (718) 245-3131, a Level 1 trauma center on Clarkson Avenue.

About The Edelsteins, Faegenburg, & Blyakher LLP

Founding partner Saul Edelstein opened the firm in 1937, and three generations have practiced here since. Glenn K. Faegenburg is a University of Pennsylvania graduate and a member of Eight Figure Litigators. Partner Arthur Blyakher worked in the field for 13 years before earning his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 2016 as a Richardson Scholarship recipient. Among the firm’s motor vehicle results is a $9,000,000 recovery for a pedestrian struck on the sidewalk by a drunk driver.

What Our Clients Say

★★★★★

“I had the pleasure of working with Arthur, he was so kind and considerate, these men are people with integrity, they are not just about money they care about people, they consider your pain and all that comes with an accident. It was a blessing working with then, all the stress was on them. I would recommend them to all who needs lawyers with a heart.” – Gwenette Oakey

Read more reviews on our Google Business Profile.

Additional Resources for Brooklyn Car Accident Cases

• 9 Questions to Ask Your Car Accident Lawyer
• What to Do After a Car Accident That Was Not Your Fault
• Common Back Injuries After a Car Accident
• Suing for a Brain Injury After a Car Accident
• How Do Punitive Damages Work in Car Accident Cases?

Contact The Edelsteins, Faegenburg, & Blyakher LLP

If another driver’s negligence put you in a Brooklyn hospital, talk to us before you talk to the insurer. The initial consultation is free. We will review the collision report, explain how No-Fault and the injury claim fit together, and tell you whether the case is worth pursuing. Contact us to schedule a free consultation with a Brooklyn car accident lawyer.