New data shows that crashes in New York State Thruway work zones have climbed to their highest level in five years. For the flaggers, laborers, and maintenance crews who spend construction season standing feet away from live traffic, the numbers confirm what they already experience every shift. The risk is real, and it is growing.
What the Crash Data Shows
In 2025, New York recorded 572 work zone crashes statewide, resulting in 87 injuries and three deaths. Crashes in Thruway work zones alone rose 46 percent from 2024 to 2025. Speeding remains a persistent problem, with one driver clocked at 139 miles per hour through an active work zone in a recent year.
Those figures come from state transportation officials, as reported by WKTV News during this year’s work zone safety campaign.
Western New York has felt these losses directly. In 2024, two Thruway Authority maintenance employees from the Buffalo Division were killed in separate incidents after being struck by vehicles on I-90. According to the Governor’s office, the leading causes of work zone crashes include distracted driving, following too closely, unsafe lane changes, and drivers ignoring warning signs.
Common Injuries in Work Zone Incidents
Highway workers struck by vehicles or caught in work zone intrusions often suffer some of the most severe injuries we see in compensation claims. These frequently include:
- Traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord damage
- Crush injuries and multiple fractures
- Internal organ damage requiring surgery
- Amputations and permanent loss of function
Even a low-speed intrusion can throw a worker into equipment, a barrier, or an open excavation. Recovery is often measured in months or years, not weeks.
Your Rights After a Work Zone Injury
If you were hurt while working in a Thruway or highway work zone, workers’ compensation covers your medical treatment and a portion of your lost wages regardless of who caused the crash. Fault does not matter for the comp claim. What does matter is acting promptly.
Under Workers’ Compensation Law § 18, written notice generally must be given to your employer within 30 days of the accident. Report the incident, get medical care, and keep copies of everything.
The Third-Party Claim Against the Driver
Work zone cases carry a second layer that many injured workers overlook. When a motorist causes your injuries, you may pursue a personal injury lawsuit against that driver in addition to your compensation claim. The comp claim pays benefits quickly. The third-party case can recover damages the comp system does not provide, including pain and suffering.
One recent change deserves attention here. A May 2026 amendment to CPLR § 1411 altered New York’s comparative negligence rules for certain motor vehicle injury cases, barring recovery where the injured person’s share of fault exceeds the defendant’s. Because these claims are now more sensitive to fault allocation, how the evidence gets developed early in the case matters more than it used to.
A workers’ compensation lawyer in Niagara Falls can coordinate both claims so that a recovery in one does not unnecessarily reduce the other, since comp carriers typically hold a lien against third-party settlements.
Getting Experienced Help in Niagara County
Hurwitz, Whitcher & Molloy has spent decades representing injured workers throughout Western New York, and the firm represents claimants only, never employers or insurance carriers.
If you or a loved one was injured in a highway work zone, contact a Niagara Falls, NY workers’ compensation lawyer crews have trusted for generations. A Niagara Falls workers’ compensation attorney can preserve your notice deadlines, document the crash while evidence is fresh, and evaluate whether a third-party claim belongs alongside your comp case.