Queens Village Personal Injury Lawyer

Our office is at 109-12 Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill — the same road you are on, a straight run west along Jamaica Avenue. Not a satellite address and not a mail drop. It is where we work.

We handle injury claims for people across Queens Village: car accidents, slip and falls, construction injuries, and everything in between. We work on contingency, which means you pay nothing unless we win.

Call 718-659-5333, or come in. Open 7am to 9pm, Monday to Friday and Sunday.

Where your Queens Village case will be heard

Most Queens personal injury cases are filed and heard at the Queens County Supreme Court, Civil Term, at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica. If your case goes to litigation rather than settling, that is the building you will be walking into.

From Queens Village that is a run west along Hillside Avenue or Jamaica Avenue, and our office is further along the same road. Motion appearances, depositions and compliance conferences happen locally, so the case is not being run by someone commuting in from Manhattan for each date — and you are not making that trip either.

Why Queens Village sees the accidents it does

Queens Village has no subway. That single fact shapes the injury picture here more than anything else.

Getting anywhere means the Long Island Rail Road from the station at Jamaica Avenue and Springfield Boulevard, driving, or the bus — and the buses run along Hillside Avenue, which is one of the most heavily used bus corridors in the city. The Q43 alone carried more than 2.6 million riders in 2024. People walk to and from bus stops on a wide, fast arterial, at all hours, in all weather.

Hillside Avenue is a Vision Zero priority corridor. Between 2018 and 2022 the city recorded 992 injuries on it, 58 of them severe, and two deaths — 261 of those injuries were to pedestrians. That works out at close to four people injured every week on one road. Springfield Boulevard at Hillside Avenue, in Queens Village, is one of only two priority intersections the city named on the corridor.

In February 2025 a 29-year-old man was killed by a truck driver turning left onto Hillside Avenue at 212th Street, around the corner from his own home. Left turns are the recurring problem on this road, not speed alone.

The corridor was rebuilt very recently. The city put in nearly eight miles of offset bus lanes between July and October 2025, ending at Springfield Boulevard — Queens Village is the eastern end of the project. The lanes are camera-enforced around the clock, and the work included pedestrian refuge islands, left-turn calming and new crossings. If your accident happened during or shortly after that construction, the road may not have looked the way it looks now, and that is worth establishing early.

On the eastern edge, the Cross Island Parkway feeds Hillside Avenue, Braddock Avenue, Jamaica Avenue and Hempstead Avenue straight into the neighbourhood. Traffic arrives at parkway speed and meets residential streets.

The cases we see most often from this part of Queens:

• Pedestrian collisions on Hillside Avenue, particularly around bus stops and at left-turn intersections
• Bus-related injuries, both on board and boarding, given the volume of bus traffic on Hillside
• Crashes at the Cross Island Parkway exits onto Hillside, Braddock and Hempstead Avenues
• Rear-end and turning collisions on Jamaica Avenue and Springfield Boulevard
• Slip and fall injuries along the Jamaica Avenue and Hillside Avenue shopping strips
• Falls at the Queens Village LIRR station

The claims we handle in Queens Village

Most of what comes through the door from this neighbourhood falls into a handful of categories.

• Car accidents on Hillside Avenue, Jamaica Avenue, Springfield Boulevard, Braddock Avenue and Francis Lewis Boulevard
• Pedestrian and cyclist collisions, especially involving turning vehicles
• Bus injuries, and LIRR claims — both carry a strict 90-day notice deadline
• Slip and fall and premises claims on the commercial frontages
• Construction accidents, which in New York carry protections most workers do not know they have — including ones that apply regardless of immigration status or whether you were paid off the books
• Truck and commercial vehicle crashes
• E-bike and e-scooter collisions
• Hit and run, and crashes where the other driver had no insurance

Sidewalk falls here are almost always the 90-day kind

Queens Village is one of the most consistently low-density neighbourhoods in the borough. Across its three ZIP codes, between nine and nine and a half out of every ten tax lots are one-, two- or three-family homes, and owner-occupancy is high.

That matters because of how New York City assigns sidewalk responsibility. Since 2003 the owner of the abutting building has been liable for most sidewalks — but not for owner-occupied one-, two- and three-family homes used purely as residences. For those, the City remains responsible, and a claim against the City has to be started with a notice of claim within 90 days, not three years.

In a neighbourhood built almost entirely from detached and semi-detached houses, that exemption is not an edge case. It is the normal situation. If you fell on a residential street in Queens Village, work on the assumption that the clock may be 90 days until someone establishes otherwise.

The exceptions are the commercial frontages on Jamaica Avenue, Hillside Avenue and Springfield Boulevard, and the garden co-op clusters. On those, the owner is liable and you have three years.

Two more 90-day traps specific to this neighbourhood

Creedmoor Psychiatric Center on Winchester Boulevard is a New York State facility, not a city one. An injury there does not go through the usual city process at all — it goes to the Court of Claims, under a different statute, with its own 90-day deadline. Part of the campus is being redeveloped into housing, which means active construction on the site.

And Belmont Park, UBS Arena and the outlet centre are all in Elmont, across the Nassau County line. They generate a great deal of the traffic that comes through Queens Village, but an injury that happens on that side of the line is a Nassau County matter with different rules. Where exactly you were standing can decide which system your claim belongs in.

Where you were treated matters

Of the hospitals serving this area, only one is city-run: NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens on 164th Street in Jamaica, still widely called Queens Hospital Center. A claim arising from care there carries the 90-day notice requirement.

Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Long Island Jewish are both private not-for-profits, and claims against them follow ordinary rules. Jamaica Hospital is the area’s designated Level I trauma centre, so the most serious injuries usually go there rather than to the closer hospital.

If you were treated anywhere after your accident, bring the paperwork to your first appointment. Those records usually decide what a claim is worth.

What to do after an accident in Queens Village

Get medical attention the same day, even if you feel fine. A gap between the accident and the first treatment is the first thing an insurer uses against you.

Call 911 and get a police report. Queens Village is covered by the 105th Precinct. If the police do not attend, file a report yourself.

Photograph the scene before anything is moved — the vehicles, the road, the hazard, your injuries. If a bus or a turning truck was involved, photograph the vehicle number and the company markings.

Take names and numbers from witnesses. On Hillside Avenue at a bus stop there are usually several, and they scatter fast.

Do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurer. You are not obliged to, and it is rarely used to help you.

Watch the deadlines. Three years from the date of the accident for most personal injury claims in New York. Ninety days if the City, the MTA, a public hospital or a state facility is involved — and in this neighbourhood, on a sidewalk or a bus, that is the more likely situation rather than the exception.

Queens Village injury claims — common questions

Where will my case be heard?

Queens County Supreme Court, Civil Term, at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, for most personal injury matters. Our office is on the same road, a few minutes further west.

How long do I have to bring a claim?

Generally three years from the date of the accident in New York, and two and a half years for medical malpractice. If a city agency, the MTA, a public hospital or a state facility is involved, the deadline drops to a 90-day notice. Call early.

I fell on the sidewalk outside a house. Who do I claim against?

In Queens Village, more often than not, the City — because most homes here are owner-occupied one- or two-family houses, which are exempt from the usual sidewalk liability rule. That means 90 days, not three years. Do not sit on it while you find out.

I was hurt on a bus, or at the LIRR station. Is that different?

Yes. A claim against the MTA carries a strict 90-day notice requirement, and with no subway here the bus and the railway are how most people travel. Contact us as soon as you can rather than waiting to see how you heal.

What does it cost to start?

Nothing. We work on contingency, which means we take a percentage only if we win. If we recover nothing for you, you owe us nothing.

Do I have to come to the office?

No. We can take the details over the phone or on WhatsApp, and if your injuries make travel difficult we will come to you. But we are straight along Jamaica Avenue at 109-12, and you are welcome any day we are open.

It’s Time To Win Your Case, Big.

Michael D. Ribowsky and his accident lawyers handle claims for physical and psychological injuries caused by someone else’s negligence. A great deal turns on timing and on detail — what was photographed, when treatment started, who was spoken to and when. Those are the things that decide what a case is worth, and they are decided in the first days rather than at the end.

We take every case seriously and we do what it takes to recover the most the facts will support, which depends on where and how you were injured and what it has cost you. Queens Village is one of many neighbourhoods we cover. See personal injury help across Queens and how we work across the whole borough.