Hit by an ATV or Dirt Bike on Long Island? Here's Who Pays for Your Injuries

On the night of July 25, 2026, a pack of roughly 200 ATVs, dirt bikes and motorcycles rode from Route 347 in Hauppauge through Lake Grove and Brentwood into Bay Shore. Suffolk County police say they arrested three riders, impounded ten vehicles and found a loaded gun on one of the people they stopped. Those are police allegations. News 12 and NBC New York covered the ride.

Nobody in that story was reported hurt. Take a woman crossing Main Street in Bay Shore at the light when a pack like that one comes through. A quad clips her in the crosswalk, the rider does not stop, and the machine carried no plate. There is no car in her household.

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 2403(1) says: “No person shall operate an ATV on a highway except as provided herein.” A ride from Hauppauge to Bay Shore is not among the exceptions. For her, that settles nothing. I handle pedestrian cases like hers on Long Island, and the first question in her file is never fault. It is who pays.

Is an ATV a “motor vehicle” for no-fault?

Everything turns on one definition, and it is not the one a car crash victim expects. Vehicle and Traffic Law § 125 lists all terrain vehicles among the exceptions to “motor vehicle,” and the no-fault law builds on that definition. The seven rules that decide the case are set out below in the statutes’ own words.

The same definition decides an e-bike or e-scooter crash, where a lawful machine is outside it and an illegal one is inside it; our guide to Suffolk’s e-bike rules and who pays covers that case.

Read together, those texts put a four-wheeled ATV outside the no-fault “motor vehicle” and inside a rule it shares with motorcycles: the machine’s own policy, if any, pays a pedestrian and pays the rider nothing. A dirt bike can fall on either side of that line. Consequently, get the make, model and VIN before anything else. The label decides which insurer, if any, owes the first $50,000.

Where the medical bills go

Who pays the first $50,000 depends on where you were when the machine hit you. A car occupant’s own carrier pays, and the rider usually has none; both are on the flow below, and the no-fault versus lawsuit guide covers the ordinary car case. The two pedestrian cases are the hard ones.

On foot or on a bicycle, with an insured car in the household

Insurance Law § 5103(a)(2) makes that policy pay first party benefits to “the named insured and members of his household, other than occupants of a motorcycle, for loss arising out of the use or operation of (i) an uninsured motor vehicle or motorcycle.” A parent’s or spouse’s policy counts if you regularly reside there (Insurance Law § 5102(h)). A machine treated as a motorcycle is named in those words; a machine treated as an ATV is not. File regardless.

On foot, with no auto policy in the household

That is the woman in the Bay Shore crosswalk, and MVAIC is her payer. It pays a “qualified person,” which Insurance Law § 5202(b) defines as “a resident of this state, other than an insured or the owner of an uninsured motor vehicle,” and subsection (i) defines “insured” by an auto policy’s uninsured motorist coverage. Here, the definition bites a second time. The MVAIC definition on the card above adds motorcycles and says nothing about ATVs; therefore a dirt bike that qualifies as a motorcycle is inside it and a quad is not. File anyway. A denial can be fought; a missed filing has to be excused first.

The flow below is the same analysis in the order I run it.

Whichever box the flow lands on, file within 30 days, and make a carrier that says the machine is the wrong kind of vehicle say so in writing.

When the rider flees: MVAIC, step by step

Plan for the rider never being identified. The woman in the crosswalk has a police report and no plate; her file runs on the hit-and-run rules in Insurance Law § 5208.

Report it within 24 hours

Section 5208(a)(2)(A) covers an accident “reported within twenty-four hours after the occurrence to a police, peace or judicial officer in the vicinity or to the commissioner.” A 911 call from the scene satisfies the rule.

File the affidavit within 90 days

The same paragraph requires an affidavit filed with MVAIC “within ninety days of the accrual of the cause of action, as a condition precedent to the right to apply for payment from the corporation.” What it must state, and the one-year window for a court to excuse a late one, are on the clocks below.

In my experience the 24-hour report takes care of itself, because someone calls 911. The affidavit is the filing that gets missed. Nobody at the hospital mentions MVAIC, and an auto carrier has no reason to. Do not wait for the police to find the rider or for the impound list. Get the report number and write down what you saw while it is fresh. Then file. If the rider is gone, assume from day one that the rider stays gone, and build the file that way.

Get the court’s permission to sue MVAIC

Insurance Law § 5218(a) requires a court order permitting the action against the corporation. Under subsection (b) the court must be satisfied that the notice of claim section was complied with, that the injured person “was not at the time of the accident operating an uninsured motor vehicle,” and that “all reasonable efforts have been made to ascertain the identity of the motor vehicle and of the owner and operator.” It is incumbent upon the applicant to make that last showing, and it is where these applications are won and lost.

Know which limit applies

No-fault benefits through MVAIC run up to $50,000. The bodily injury judgment is separate, and Insurance Law § 5210(a) caps it at $25,000 for injury to one person; the full schedule and the serious injury condition are on the card above. A household policy’s uninsured motorist endorsement under Insurance Law § 3420(f)(1) must carry at least $25,000 in uninsured motorist coverage for injury to one person; the hit-and-run settlement guide covers that coverage.

The clocks, in the order they run:

Miss the affidavit and MVAIC holds a defense before the police have finished looking for the rider.

Suing the rider, and the owner

An identified rider is personally liable for negligence, and CPLR § 214(5) gives three years to commence “an action to recover damages for a personal injury.” A rider on an unregistered machine rarely has a policy behind him; therefore, the owner matters.

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 388(1) makes an owner liable for negligent operation “by any person using or operating the same with the permission, express or implied, of such owner.” However, subdivision 2 defines “vehicle” for that section as “a ‘motor vehicle’, as defined in section one hundred twenty-five of this chapter,” and that definition, as the card above shows, excludes ATVs. The section reaches the owner of a lent motorcycle and not the owner of a lent ATV.

The ATV article has its own rule. Vehicle and Traffic Law § 2411 provides that “[n]egligence in the use or operation of an ATV shall be attributable to the owner,” and that every owner of an ATV used or operated in this state “shall be liable and responsible for death or injury to person or damage to property resulting from negligence in the use or operation of such ATV by any person using or operating the same with the permission, express or implied, of such owner.” Consequently, the owner of a lent ATV answers for the rider’s negligence the same way a car owner does, and the fight is over permission.

For a dirt bike that is neither an ATV under that definition nor a registered motorcycle, the claim against the owner rests on what the owner did: whom the owner handed the machine to and what the owner knew. Nothing in these statutes makes a parent pay because of the relationship alone. A homeowner’s policy may or may not respond; its motor vehicle exclusion controls, so demand the policy in discovery.

A claim that Suffolk or Nassau police should have stopped the takeover does not lie against the county without a special relationship between the police and the injured person; police protection is owed to the public at large. Spend the effort on the rider and the owner.

The 2026 threshold and fault rules

Part EE of S9008-C, signed May 26, 2026, applies to motor vehicle actions commenced on or after May 26, 2026. Insurance Law § 5104(a) bars recovery for non-economic loss “except in the case of a serious injury” in “any action by or on behalf of a covered person against another covered person.” The 90/180-day category is gone from the serious injury definition in Insurance Law § 5102(d), which now lists eight categories; the serious injury threshold guide covers the proof each takes.

Whether that governs a suit against the rider turns on “covered person.” Insurance Law § 5102(j) defines one as “any pedestrian injured through the use or operation of, or any owner, operator or occupant of, a motor vehicle which has in effect the financial security required by article six or eight of the vehicle and traffic law,” or “any other person entitled to first party benefits.” A rider on an uninsured, unregistered machine fits neither clause on the face of that text, and the threshold rule, by its words, governs suits between covered persons.

Section 5104(a) now also sequences the trial: “the trier of fact shall not determine the question of whether an injury is a serious injury until the trier of fact has determined the party or parties at fault.” CPLR § 1411(b) bars recovery in an action “subject to article fifty-one of the insurance law” where the claimant’s culpable conduct “is greater than the culpable conduct of the person against whom recovery is sought.” Expect that argument if the rider’s side can put the woman in the crosswalk against the signal; the tort reform summary covers the rest. Consequently, who had the light is as much a part of the first month’s work as the search for the plate.

Evidence, and the first 30 days

Your file will be judged against Insurance Law § 5218(b)(5): all reasonable efforts to identify the machine, the owner and the operator. Store and doorbell cameras overwrite themselves in days. Riders post their own footage, and the 911 recording holds the first description. The police impound list, ten entries on July 25, 2026, is the closest thing to a registry these rides produce.

The cameras go first, so the preservation letters go out before the police report is even typed.

Before you call

By the end of her first month the woman in the Bay Shore crosswalk has a police report number, an emergency room record that names the machine, two doorbell clips from Main Street, and an affidavit on file with MVAIC. That is the file the court reads when she asks for leave to sue the corporation. If the impound list puts a name on the quad, the suit runs against that owner under the ATV article; if it does not, the affidavit is the whole claim. The hit-and-run settlement guide covers each path in more detail.

Bring what you have of these to the first call:

• The police report number.
• Every photo and video from the scene, and who was filming.
• The emergency room discharge papers.
• The declarations page of any auto policy in your household.

If an ATV, dirt bike or motorcycle hit you on Long Island, call (516) 750-0595 or request a free case review with the police report number in hand; the 90-day MVAIC clock does not wait for the rider to be found. Our pedestrian accident and motorcycle accident pages go deeper on liability.

Sources

• Vehicle and Traffic Law § 125, § 388, § 2281, § 2403, § 2411
• Insurance Law § 3420, § 5102, § 5103, § 5104, § 5201, § 5202, § 5208, § 5210, § 5218
• CPLR § 214, § 1411
• News 12 and NBC New York on the July 25, 2026 ride