Construction Zone Car Accidents on I-95 and the Taconic: Who Pays When Work Zones Cause Crashes?

If you were hurt in a work zone crash in Westchester, the money can come from the other driver, the construction contractor, or the public agency that owns the road. Here’s the part almost nobody gets right: I-95 through Westchester is the New England Thruway, run by the New York State Thruway Authority, while the Taconic State Parkway belongs to NYSDOT. Two different agencies. Two different sets of paperwork. Miss the distinction and a valid claim can be thrown out before anyone looks at your injuries.

That’s not a scare tactic. It’s a documented failure mode, and we walk through the actual case below.

Right now a driver can pass through a Thruway Authority work zone on I-95 and an NYSDOT work zone on the Taconic during the same commute. If you’re trying to sort out what happened to you, a car accident lawyer in Westchester can identify the road owner quickly, because that one fact controls your deadline, your defendant, and your courthouse.

At the Law Offices of Norman Gershon, we’ve spent more than 35 years handling injury cases across Westchester County and New York City. This post pulls together what the federal data, the state’s own numbers, and New York case law actually say about who pays.

Work Zone Crashes Kill More Drivers Than Workers: 673 Out of 850

Most people assume work zone safety is about protecting road crews. The federal numbers say otherwise.

According to the Federal Highway Administration’s 2026 National Work Zone Awareness Week fact sheet (FHWA-HOP-26-060), which uses NHTSA FARS 2024 data:

• 850 people died in work zones in 2024, down from 905 in 2023
• 673 of those 850 were drivers and passengers. That’s 79 percent
• 169 were pedestrians and pedalcyclists, and 8 were classified as other
• More than half of all fatal work zone crashes in 2024 happened at night
• Rear-end collisions caused 22 percent of fatal work zone crashes (169 crashes), up from 21 percent in 2023
• Speed was a factor in 34 percent (262 crashes), up from 29 percent the year before
• Large trucks or buses were involved in 31 percent (236 crashes)
• Averaged over 2022 to 2024, urban Interstates accounted for 25.7 percent of fatal work zone crashes

That night’s statistics matter more than it looks. Most of the current I-95 work in Westchester is being done overnight.

Closer to home, the Governor’s office reported in April 2026 that work zone crashes on the New York State Thruway climbed in 2025 to their highest level since 2020, with 228 crashes causing 28 injuries. On NYSDOT-owned roads, there were 366 work zone crashes in 2025, with 58 injuries and two deaths.

New York also tracks something called a work zone intrusion, which the state defines as an incident where a motor vehicle enters a portion of roadway closed for construction or maintenance. During 2024 there were 450 intrusions on roads maintained by NYSDOT and the Thruway Authority. More than 150 caused injuries to a highway worker or a vehicle occupant, and four were fatal.

Notice the wording. The state itself counts injured drivers right alongside injured workers.

The Gershon Road-Owner Test: Identify Who Owns the Road First

Before anything else, figure out whose road you were hurt on. Everything downstream depends on it.

Road you were hurt on	Who you’re claiming against	Where the case goes	Deadline to act
I-95 / New England Thruway, I-87	NYS Thruway Authority	Court of Claims	90 days, and the Thruway Authority must be served in addition to the Attorney General
Taconic State Parkway, state routes	State of New York (NYSDOT)	Court of Claims	90 days, served on the Attorney General
County or city street	Municipality	Supreme Court	General Municipal Law notice of claim procedure
The construction contractor, on any road	Private company	Supreme Court	Three years under CPLR 214, no notice of claim

Look at that last row again. The contractor is often the only defendant still available months later, long after the public entity is out of reach.

Why Suing “New York State” for an I-95 Crash Can Fail

The Thruway Authority is an independent public corporation. It is solely liable for its own negligence in maintaining and operating the Thruway, and the Court of Claims has exclusive jurisdiction over claims against it under Public Authorities Law §361-b.

Court of Claims Act §11(a)(ii) requires that in any action against the Thruway Authority, a copy of the claim be served personally or by certified mail, return receipt requested, on the Authority in addition to the Attorney General, within the same time limits. Any notice of intention has to go to the Authority too.

In Swart v. New York State Thruway Authority, a Notice of Intention was served on time, but only on the State. The Thruway Authority challenged jurisdiction. The court held that serving the Attorney General does not confer jurisdiction over the Thruway Authority, which is a separate and distinct entity from the State. The court also held it had no authority to fix the problem after the fact.

Timely, and still dismissed.

A quick correction on something that circulates widely online: claims against the State and against the Thruway Authority are governed by Court of Claims Act §§10 and 11, not the 90-day General Municipal Law §50-e notice of claim that applies to municipalities in the Supreme Court. Different statute, different court.

The 30-90-3 Timeline: Three Clocks Running at Once

30 days. Form NF-2 must be filed with the correct no-fault insurer within 30 days of the crash. Medical providers submit bills within 45 days of each treatment date, and proof of lost wages goes in within 90 days of your first missed workday.

90 days. Personal injury claims against the State or the Thruway Authority based on negligence must be brought within 90 days after accrual. If a Notice of Intention to Make Claim is served in that window, you then have two years to file the actual claim in the Court of Claims.

3 years. The ordinary negligence period for suing a private contractor.

If the 90 days are already gone, there is still a path, though it isn’t automatic. Court of Claims Act §10(6) allows a motion for permission to file a late claim. The court weighs whether the delay was excusable, whether the State had notice of the essential facts, whether it had a chance to investigate, whether the claim appears to have merit, whether the delay caused real prejudice, and whether you have another remedy. The motion has to be made within the limitations period that would apply to a similar case against a private party, so three years for negligence. After that, the court simply cannot grant it. Courts generally treat the merit factor as the most important one.

If you’re anywhere near a 90-day mark, call us at 914-477-2684. We have offices at 1 Barker Avenue in White Plains, right at the I-287 and I-95 junction, and at 60 June Road in North Salem, in the northern Westchester Taconic and I-684 corridor. Hablamos Español.

Can You Sue a Construction Company You Never Had a Contract With?

Usually a contractor owes no duty to a stranger, because the contract is with the state agency, not with you. The controlling case is Espinal v. Melville Snow Contractors, Inc., 98 N.Y.2d 136 (2002), where the Court of Appeals recognized three exceptions:

1. The contractor, by failing to use reasonable care, launches a force or instrument of harm
2. The injured person detrimentally relied on the contractor’s continued performance
3. The contractor entirely displaced the other party’s duty to keep the premises safe

The first one carries most work zone cases. A contractor who sets a taper too short, leaves a milled drop-off unprotected, misplaces channelizing devices, or lets signage fall out of position has arguably created or made worse a hazardous condition, not merely performed a contract poorly.

There’s a real limit here, and we’d rather you hear it now. The Second Department has held that passive omissions don’t count as launching a force or instrument of harm where there’s no evidence the conduct created or worsened a dangerous condition. Doing nothing generally isn’t enough. The claim has to rest on something the contractor affirmatively did.

For public context only, and with no suggestion of fault by anyone: the Governor’s office identifies JRCruz Corp. as the contractor on the Mamaroneck to Rye I-95 project and DeFoe Corp. of Mount Vernon on the larger I-95 pavement and bridge project.

When the State’s Qualified Immunity Runs Out

A municipality owes the public an absolute duty to keep its streets reasonably safe, and that duty is nondelegable. Hiring a contractor doesn’t discharge it.

Against that sits qualified immunity. In the field of traffic design engineering, the State gets qualified immunity for highway planning decisions. Liability can still arise where the traffic design plan evolved without adequate study or lacked a reasonable basis (Weiss v. Fote, 7 NY2d 579, 589 [1960]).

Four documented limits on that immunity:

• The entity has to show the decision came out of a deliberative decision-making process (Ramirez v. State of New York, 143 AD3d 880, 881). No study in the file, no immunity
• The immunity applies only where an authorized planning body actually considered the same question of risk a jury would consider (Turturro v. City of New York)
• Once a municipality knows about a dangerous traffic condition, it must study it with an eye toward fixing it, and after putting a plan in place it has a continuing duty to review that plan based on how it actually works (Friedman v. State of New York, 67 NY2d at 284)
• The immunity covers traffic design engineering only. Claims about routine maintenance fall outside it

That third point deserves emphasis. A work zone that keeps producing crashes triggers a duty to go back and revisit the traffic control plan.

What Federal Rules Now Require of Every Work Zone

These are the engineering duties a plaintiff’s expert measures a work zone against. As of July 2026:

• The Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule (23 CFR 630 Subpart J) was published at 89 FR 87293 on November 1, 2024 and took effect December 2, 2024. It’s the first update in about two decades. States must comply with all provisions no later than December 31, 2026
• The Temporary Traffic Control Devices Rule (Subpart K) sets minimum requirements for positive protection devices between the work space and traffic, installation and upkeep of temporary traffic control devices, use of uniformed law enforcement, and contract pay items so the money for these measures is actually there
• Subpart K requires positive protection devices, at minimum, in work zones with high anticipated operating speeds that leave workers no escape from intruding traffic, unless an engineering study says otherwise
• Payment for traffic control features can’t be buried as incidental to the contract or bundled with unrelated items. Separate pay items are required for major categories
• The Temporary Traffic Control plan must be consistent with Part 6 of the MUTCD, and existing roadside safety hardware has to be maintained at an equivalent or better level
• Subpart J requires both the contractor and the State DOT to name a trained person responsible for implementing the project’s Transportation Management Plan

That last bullet is worth sitting with. It means there are identifiable people carrying a documented duty on every federally funded project.

On the MUTCD side, states had until January 18, 2026 to adopt the 11th Edition or keep a state supplement in substantial conformance. New York publishes its deviations through the New York State Supplement at 17 NYCRR Chapter V, with Part 6 covering temporary traffic control.

Work Zone Speed Cameras Create Evidence, Not Just Fines

Here’s something we don’t see discussed anywhere: New York’s Automated Work Zone Speed Enforcement program produces a certified government record that can help an injured driver.

Vehicle and Traffic Law §1180-e requires that workers be present and that signs be posted stating a photo speed monitoring system is in use. So a Notice of Liability is contemporaneous, state-certified proof that workers were there and signage was deployed at that location, on that date, at that time.

The system records time, date, posted speed, vehicle speed, location, lane, and direction of travel. A New York State Certified Technician reviews and certifies each violation. Systems must be recalibrated and recertified annually, with certification valid for 365 days, and they run daily self-tests. NYSDOT also publishes scheduled deployment locations.

Program basics worth knowing:

• Fines are $50 for a first violation, $75 for a second within 18 months, and $100 for a third or later violation within 18 months
• No license points are assessed for AWZSE violations, and they are not reported to insurers
• The registered owner receives the notice and owes the fine
• If no specific work zone speed limit is posted, the regular posted highway limit applies

On July 20, 2026, NYSDOT announced a statewide expansion of the program. Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez, announcing it in the Rochester area, described it as a significant step toward safer roads for everyone, and especially for highway workers and contractors. Cameras are no longer limited to controlled-access highways and can now be used on nearly any roadway in the state. The announcement was statewide, and deployment locations rotate weekly, so it doesn’t tell you which Westchester roads are covered on any given day.

Whether a camera record helps in a specific case depends on the facts. That’s a question for an attorney, not a blog post.

“I Was Speeding Too, So I Probably Have No Case”

This is the objection we hear most, and it’s based on a misunderstanding.

CPLR 1411 provides that in a personal injury action, the injured person’s own culpable conduct does not bar recovery. It reduces damages in proportion to that conduct. CPLR 1412 makes culpable conduct an affirmative defense that the defendant has to plead and prove. New York adopted pure comparative negligence in 1975.

Under Rodriguez v. City of New York, 31 N.Y.3d 312 (2018), making the plaintiff disprove comparative fault would flip the burden CPLR 1412 places on the defense.

Being partly at fault reduces your recovery. It doesn’t end it, unless you were solely at fault.

Related note on the new penalty structure: as of February 16, 2026, New York’s DMV point system changed, and speeding in a construction zone now carries a flat 8 points regardless of how far over the limit you were. Previously it scaled from 3 to 11. A license may be suspended at 10 points in 24 months, replacing the old 11 points in 18 months. DMV publications are still being updated, so check dmv.ny.gov for current values rather than relying on secondary sources.

Who Pays Your Medical Bills While the Fault Fight Plays Out

No-fault covers up to $50,000 in basic economic loss regardless of who caused the crash. That includes necessary medical expenses and 80 percent of lost earnings up to $2,000 per month.

The deadlines are unforgiving:

• NF-2 within 30 days to the correct insurer
• Medical bills within 45 days of each treatment date
• Lost wage proof within 90 days of the first missed workday

To sue for pain and suffering, your injury has to meet one of nine serious injury categories under Insurance Law §5102(d): death, dismemberment, significant and permanent disfigurement, fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ or function, permanent consequential limitation, significant limitation of use of a body function or system, or a medically determined injury that prevents normal daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash.

Two things sink threshold cases more than anything else: gaps in treatment and a lack of objective findings. If you stop going to appointments because you’re busy or feeling somewhat better, that gap becomes the defense’s best argument.

One exclusion to flag: motorcycle operators and passengers are outside New York’s no-fault system entirely. No PIP coverage, and no serious injury threshold either.

Where the Active Westchester Work Zones Are Right Now

I-95 (Thruway Authority):

• A $39.7 million pavement project between Mamaroneck and Rye started June 4, 2026 and runs into late 2027. It covers more than 12 lane miles in both directions, from just past exit 18 to just before exit 20 northbound (mileposts 10.8 to 13.0) and mileposts 10.8 to 8.8 southbound. The corridor carries roughly 120,000 vehicles a day, and most of the work is overnight.
• An $86.7 million pavement and bridge project covers milepost 4.0 to 8.8, from south of exit 15 in New Rochelle to exit 18A in Mamaroneck. It includes rehabilitation of six bridges, among them the Centre Avenue bridge in New Rochelle, the Chatsworth Avenue bridge in Larchmont, and the bridge serving Metro-North’s Larchmont station, plus resurfacing of six more, new guiderail and lighting, and new markings. Paving happens overnight. Completion is expected by the end of 2026.
• Since 2023 the Thruway Authority has launched three projects worth nearly $200 million on its 15-mile stretch of I-95.

Taconic State Parkway (NYSDOT):

• Rehabilitation of the Illington Road bridge over the Taconic in Yorktown, originally built in 1967, began in 2024 under a $17.4 million initiative funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with completion scheduled for summer 2026. The overpass closure requires detours.
• The 2026 paving program includes a lane mile of the Taconic between the Sprain Brook and Saw Mill River Parkways in Mount Pleasant.
• Two accelerated pavement restoration projects are planned in Westchester along Routes 133 and 100B. Route 133 is a main commuter connection to the Taconic.

Statewide, NYSDOT is investing more than $600 million across more than 180 paving projects in the 2026 season, covering almost 2,150 lane miles.

John Cooney Jr., Executive Director of the Construction Industry Council of Westchester and Hudson Valley, made the point well in April 2026: a work zone isn’t just part of your commute, it’s someone’s workplace, and the recent spike in crashes shows that ordinary habits like speeding and phone use carry real consequences in those areas.

The industry side backs that up. The 2026 AGC and HCSS Highway Work Zone Safety Survey, released May 20, 2026 after surveying more than 700 contractors, found that 60 percent had at least one crash involving a moving vehicle in their work zones in the past year, and nearly a third had five or more. Among contractors who had crashes, 22 percent reported a driver or passenger death, compared with 7 percent reporting a worker death. More than 90 percent named distracted driving as a major cause.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is I-95 in Westchester run by NYSDOT or the Thruway Authority? The Thruway Authority. That stretch is the New England Thruway. The Taconic State Parkway is NYSDOT. Different agencies, different service requirements, same 90-day clock.

Can I sue NYSDOT for a work zone accident? Yes, in the Court of Claims, subject to the qualified immunity doctrine for traffic design decisions. That immunity has real limits, including the requirement that the agency show an actual deliberative process behind the decision.

Do I have to serve the Thruway Authority separately from the Attorney General? Yes. Court of Claims Act §11(a)(ii) requires service on the Authority in addition to the Attorney General. Swart shows what happens when that step is missed.

What if I already missed the 90-day deadline? You may be able to move for permission to file a late claim under §10(6), and the motion has to be made within the three-year negligence period. Courts weigh six factors and treat merit as the most important. The contractor may still be reachable on the ordinary three-year timeline even when the public entity is not.

Do work zone speed camera tickets put points on my license? No. AWZSE violations are civil, carry no points, and are not reported to insurance companies. The registered owner pays the fine.

How much is a work zone accident case worth in New York? No honest answer exists without the facts. Injury severity, treatment history, wage loss, threshold status, and which defendants are available all move the number. Anyone quoting you a range from a webpage is guessing.

Are work zone crashes really worse at night? Yes. More than half of fatal work zone crashes in 2024 happened at night, which is when most of the current I-95 work in Westchester is being performed.

Find Out Who Owns Your Road Before the Clock Runs Out

If you were injured in a work zone on I-95, the Taconic, or any road under construction in Westchester or New York City, the first question isn’t how much your case is worth. It’s who owns that road, because that answer sets your deadline and your defendant.

The Law Offices of Norman Gershon has represented injury victims for more than 35 years, with over $100 million won since 1991. Our reported results include verdicts against public entities, among them $16,500,000 in Betancourt v. NYCTA (Bronx Supreme) and $14,500,000 in Lin v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Queens Supreme). Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any other case, since every case turns on its own facts.

Work zone crashes sit at the intersection of two areas we handle, vehicle collisions and construction site injury claims, which is exactly why the liability picture gets complicated.

Call 914-477-2684 or reach us at our White Plains or North Salem office. If your crash happened within the last 90 days on a state or Thruway road, please don’t wait on it.