I've driven Old Country Road more times than I can count. Anyone who has knows the feeling: the lights at the shopping center entrances, cars cutting across three lanes to make a turn into a parking lot, a delivery truck double-parked on Post Avenue, and the merge onto the Northern State when everyone seems to be in a hurry. Westbury is a busy, close-knit place, right in the middle of Nassau County, and it sees its share of accidents.
If you've been hurt in Westbury, whether in a crash, a fall at a store, or on a broken sidewalk, this guide is meant to give you a clear, local picture of what comes next. I'm Yakov Mushiyev, and my firm represents injured people throughout Nassau County. Here's what I tell neighbors who call me after an accident.
The kinds of cases we see in Westbury
Car crashes on the busy corridors
Old Country Road, Post Avenue, Westbury Avenue, Brush Hollow Road and the roads feeding the Northern State and Meadowbrook parkways carry heavy traffic all day. The most common crashes we see are rear-end collisions at lights, left-turn crashes into shopping plazas, sideswipes during lane changes, and collisions in and around large parking lots. We wrote a separate guide on Westbury parking lot and Old Country Road crashes if that's what happened to you.
Pedestrians and cyclists
People walking to the Westbury LIRR station, crossing Post Avenue to shops and restaurants, or riding bikes on roads without bike lanes are especially vulnerable. Under New York law, a pedestrian hit by a car is covered by no-fault first, and can then bring a claim against the driver if the injury is serious. Our Long Island pedestrian accident guide covers this in detail.
Slip and falls in stores and on private property
Big-box stores, supermarkets and restaurants along the commercial strips handle huge numbers of shoppers. Spills, leaking freezers, broken mats, wet entryways in winter, and merchandise stacked too high cause falls and injuries. To win, you generally need to show the owner created the hazard or knew, or should have known, about it in time to fix it.
Falls on public sidewalks and roads
A raised sidewalk slab, a pothole in a crosswalk, a missing grate: when the property belongs to the Village of Westbury, the Town, or Nassau County, the rules are different and much stricter. More on that below.
Work and construction injuries
Westbury has active commercial and residential construction. Workers hurt in falls from ladders and scaffolds may have claims beyond workers' comp under New York's Labor Law. See our guide to Long Island construction accidents and Labor Law 240 and 241.
Dog bites and other injuries
We also handle dog bites, injuries in apartment buildings caused by landlord neglect, and accidents involving buses and rideshares.
Car accident claims: how no-fault works in Nassau County
New York is a no-fault state. After a car crash in Westbury, your own auto policy (or the policy of the car you were in) pays your medical bills and part of your lost wages, regardless of who caused the accident. A few points matter right away:
- File the no-fault application quickly. The deadline is generally 30 days from the accident.
- Treat consistently and tell every provider the injury came from the crash.
- Know the "serious injury" rule. To recover pain and suffering from the at-fault driver, your injury generally has to meet the definition in Insurance Law § 5102(d), such as a fracture or a significant or permanent limitation of use of a body part. (New York removed the old “90/180-day” category for lawsuits filed after late May 2026.)
Our no-fault guide explains the forms, the deadlines, and what to do if benefits are denied.
When the village, town or county is responsible
This is the part I want every Westbury resident to remember. If a government body owned or maintained the place where you were hurt, such as a village sidewalk, a county road, a town park or a public building, you generally have just 90 days to file a notice of claim under General Municipal Law § 50-e, and about a year and 90 days to start a lawsuit. Miss the 90-day notice and you may need court permission to proceed, which isn't guaranteed.
There's a second trap. Many Long Island municipalities have prior written notice laws. These say the municipality isn't liable for a defect in a sidewalk or road unless it received written notice of that specific defect beforehand and failed to fix it. There are exceptions, for example when the municipality itself created the defect, but these laws make public-property cases harder and very fact-specific.
Westbury is also a place where jurisdiction gets confusing. The Village of Westbury handles its own streets and sidewalks, but some roads are county or state roads, and nearby areas such as New Cassel and Carle Place fall under the Town of North Hempstead rather than the village. Figuring out who owned the spot where you fell or crashed is one of the first things we do. You can find village contact information on the Village of Westbury's website, and we walk through the notice process in our Nassau County notice of claim guide.
Even when a case against a municipality looks difficult, it's worth a prompt review: the notice of claim keeps your options open while the facts are investigated.
Deadlines at a glance
| Claim | General deadline |
|---|---|
| No-fault application after a car crash | 30 days |
| Notice of claim against the village, town or county | 90 days |
| Lawsuit against a municipality | 1 year and 90 days |
| Most negligence lawsuits against private parties | 3 years |
| Wrongful death | 2 years |
A word about insurance adjusters
Within a day or two of an accident, you may get a friendly call from the other side's insurance company. The adjuster may offer to "get this wrapped up" quickly, ask for a recorded statement, or request a signed authorization for all of your medical records. Be polite, but be careful. Early offers usually come before anyone knows how serious your injuries are, and broad medical authorizations let the insurer search your history for something to blame instead of the accident. Our article on the dangers of fast settlement offers explains what to watch for.
Where your case will be heard
If your Westbury case goes to court, it will most likely be filed in Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola, just a few minutes from Westbury. Most injury cases settle before trial, but knowing the court, the judges' practices, and how local juries tend to see these cases matters when we value a claim and negotiate. If you're curious what the process looks like, our article on the steps of a lawsuit in Nassau Supreme Court lays it out.
What to do in the first few days
- Get checked out. NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island in Mineola and Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow are both close by. Delayed treatment is one of the first things insurers point to.
- Get the report. For a crash, ask the Nassau County Police officer for the report number. For a fall in a store, ask the manager to write an incident report and ask for a copy, or at least a photo of it.
- Take photos of the scene, the hazard, the vehicles and your injuries, ideally before anything is cleaned up or repaired.
- Write down witnesses' names and numbers. Shoppers and passersby are hard to find later.
- Ask about cameras. Stores, gas stations and many homes along these roads have video, but it is often recorded over within days or weeks. A lawyer can send a preservation letter right away.
- Don't give a recorded statement to the other side's insurer until you've gotten advice.
- Keep a simple diary of your pain, appointments and the things you can't do. Our guide to keeping an injury diary explains why it carries weight.
What a Westbury injury claim can include
Depending on the facts, compensation can include medical bills not covered by no-fault or health insurance, lost wages beyond the no-fault limits, loss of future earning capacity, and pain and suffering. A spouse may have a separate claim for loss of companionship. For a sense of how these damages are valued, see our guide to personal injury settlements in New York.
Questions Westbury residents ask us
Do I have a case if I was partly at fault?
Possibly. For falls and most other injuries, New York uses pure comparative fault under CPLR § 1411, so your recovery is reduced by your share of fault, not eliminated. In car crash cases filed since late May 2026, the rule is stricter: if you were more at fault than the other driver or drivers, you recover nothing. Insurers often overstate how much blame belongs to the injured person.
The store says I should have watched where I was going. Is that the end of it?
No. Whether a hazard was "open and obvious" can reduce a claim, but it doesn't automatically excuse an owner who left a dangerous condition in place. These cases turn on the details: how long the hazard was there, whether staff knew, and whether it was reasonably visible.
I was hit by a driver with no insurance. What now?
Your own policy's uninsured motorist coverage may pay, and no-fault still covers your medical bills and part of your wages. Our article on using your own uninsured motorist coverage explains how.
What if I was hurt as an Uber or Lyft passenger?
Rideshare companies carry large insurance policies while a trip is in progress. These cases have their own coverage rules, which we deal with often.
How much does it cost to talk to you?
Nothing. The consultation is free, and if we take your case, we're paid a percentage of the recovery only if we win. Our guide on contingency fees explains the details.
How long will my case take?
Simple car accident claims with clear injuries can sometimes resolve within months. Cases that require a lawsuit in Mineola often take one to three years. We'll give you an honest estimate after we've reviewed your records.
Why people in Westbury call us
I'm a former head litigation attorney, and my firm focuses only on helping injured people. We're not a high-volume settlement mill. When you call, you talk to a lawyer, not a call center, and we take the time to find out who was really responsible and what your case is really worth. We've recovered over $80 million for clients across New York City and Long Island. We also serve neighboring communities like Garden City, Mineola, Hicksville and the rest of Nassau County.
- Free consultation, by phone, video, at your home or in the hospital
- No fee unless we win
- Consultations in English, Russian and Spanish
Call 718.775.3110 or contact us online. If you've been hurt in Westbury, the sooner we start, the more evidence we can protect.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Attorney Advertising.