Philadelphia Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

A driver is texting at 35 miles per hour. You’re three steps into the crosswalk at Roosevelt Boulevard and Cottman Avenue. By the time the bumper hits, your femur is broken in two places and your case is already being shaped by an insurance adjuster you’ve never met. That’s how fast a pedestrian crash changes a life in Philadelphia.

The driver’s carrier has lawyers, claims investigators, and decades of practice paying as little as possible. You have a hospital bracelet and questions nobody at the ER can answer. The math isn’t fair, and it isn’t accidental. The system is built that way.

Greg Prosmushkin built this firm in 1995 on Bustleton Avenue because Northeast Philadelphia needed a personal injury attorney who’d actually try the case if the carrier wouldn’t pay what it was worth. Thirty years later, that’s still how we work. We’ve recovered more than $100 million for injured clients across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Greg has been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer six years running (2021 through 2026), is admitted in PA, NJ, and NY plus eight federal district courts, and earned the Million Dollar Advocates Forum membership held by fewer than one percent of U.S. attorneys. Our team handles cases in English, Russian, and Spanish, and the firm has staff capacity in Polish, Ukrainian, and Italian as well.

From the moment you call, we take over the adjusters, the investigation, and the medical-records work so you can focus on healing. There is no upfront cost. We work on contingency, which means no fee unless we recover compensation for you.

Call our Philadelphia office at 215-799-9990 any hour. Walk-ins are welcome at 9637 Bustleton Avenue. Consultations are free, and the conversation stays private.

“No promises made, but a job very, very well done.”

– Yusef Cooper, retired law enforcement, GProsLaw client

What to Do After a Pedestrian Accident in Philadelphia

The first 72 hours decide more about your case than most people realize. Adjusters call early. Witnesses scatter. Surveillance footage gets overwritten. Memories sharpen, then fade. Here is what protects you, in the order it matters most.

Get to a hospital that night, not next week. Insurance carriers use treatment gaps as evidence that you weren’t really hurt. A trip to Jefferson Northeast Hospital on Knights Road or Temple University Hospital’s Level I trauma center off Broad Street creates the contemporaneous medical record your case will live or die on. Tell the ER everything that hurts, even if it seems minor. The ‘minor’ headache often turns out to be a concussion.

Call the police and stay until the report number is in your hand. Philadelphia Police Department dispatches officers to pedestrian crashes routinely. Get the report number. If the driver tries to wave you off with their personal info and a promise to ‘work it out,’ do not agree. Their carrier will not honor that conversation.

Photograph the scene before anything moves. Vehicle position. Skid marks. Crosswalk paint. Traffic signal status. Damage to the vehicle. Your injuries. The street name signs. If the impact happened at an intersection, photograph all four corners. SEPTA stop signage if relevant. Bystander faces are evidence too.

Get every witness’s name and number, not just their statement. Most witnesses will agree to talk at the scene. Almost none of them will answer their phone three weeks later if you didn’t get the number directly. Names without contact info are nearly useless to a litigator.

Say nothing recorded to the driver’s insurance company. Their adjuster will call within 48 hours and ask for a recorded statement ‘just to close out the file.’ That statement becomes Exhibit A when they later argue you didn’t seem hurt or you stepped off the curb suddenly. Tell them politely that your attorney will be in touch, then hang up.

Save every receipt, every prescription, every missed-shift email. Out-of-pocket expenses. Mileage to physical therapy. Childcare you had to pay for because you couldn’t drive. All of it is recoverable. Without documentation, none of it is.

Call us before you sign anything. Quick settlement offers in the first two weeks are almost always a fraction of what the case is worth. A $20,000 check looks like rescue money when your fridge is empty. It also closes the file on the surgery you might need in eighteen months. Our consultations are free. Run any offer past us first.

Understanding Pedestrian Rights and Pennsylvania Law

Pedestrians have the right to use Philadelphia’s streets. They also have specific legal duties. The rules sound simple until you read the fine print, and the fine print is where insurance adjusters live.

Crosswalks (marked and unmarked). When traffic signals are absent or out of service, a motorist must yield to a pedestrian crossing within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. “Unmarked crosswalk” matters here. The legal crosswalk extends across the intersection even if the paint is worn or never existed. Drivers who claim they didn’t see paint are not getting a free pass under Pennsylvania law (75 Pa.C.S. § 3542).

Pedestrian duty. A pedestrian cannot suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and step into the path of a vehicle that’s so close the driver cannot yield. This is the rule adjusters lean on hardest. It does not say a pedestrian is at fault for being in the road. It says timing matters.

Stopped vehicles at crosswalks. When a vehicle stops at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross, the cars behind cannot overtake that stopped vehicle. This is one of the most common fact patterns in Philadelphia pedestrian crashes on multi-lane streets like Roosevelt Boulevard, Aramingo Avenue, and Cottman Avenue. The second driver, who couldn’t see what the first driver was stopping for, is the one who hits the pedestrian.

Right of way at uncontrolled intersections. On streets without a stop sign or signal, the pedestrian generally has right of way in the crosswalk. “Generally” is the operative word. Pedestrians who dart between parked cars or cross diagonally outside the crosswalk give the defense room to argue comparative fault.

Sidewalks and shoulder walking. Where a sidewalk exists, pedestrians must use it. Where no sidewalk exists, pedestrians must walk on the shoulder facing oncoming traffic. Vehicles striking pedestrians on shoulders raise their own liability questions, especially around construction zones and rural roads in Bucks and Montgomery counties.

Proving Your Pedestrian Accident Claim

Proving a pedestrian case isn’t about the driver admitting fault. They almost never do. It’s about building a record so complete that the insurance carrier’s lawyers stop arguing and start writing checks. Here’s what goes into the file we build for you.

• Police accident report and any supplemental crash reconstruction. We pull these directly from the Philadelphia Police Department or the responding municipality.
• 911 audio. Sometimes the driver makes admissions on the call. Sometimes a witness does. We subpoena the audio when it matters.
• Surveillance footage from nearby businesses, residential cameras, and SEPTA bus dashcams. Most of this gets overwritten within 7 to 30 days, so we send preservation letters the same week we’re retained.
• Cell phone records of the driver. We use these to prove distracted driving when the crash time lines up with a text, call, or app activity spike.
• EDR data (the vehicle’s “black box”). Modern cars record speed, braking, and steering inputs in the seconds before impact. The defense almost never volunteers this. We make them produce it.
• Accident reconstruction by an outside engineer when speed, sight lines, or signal timing are in dispute. We use the same reconstructionists who built our $1 million pre-suit motorcycle case in Bucks County, where video of the truck running the stop sign turned a comparative-fault defense into a clean recovery.
• Full medical workup, including specialists the ER didn’t call. A pedestrian impact often produces injuries that don’t show on the first imaging. We get the right doctors in front of the right injuries.
• Wage records, tax returns, and a vocational expert when long-term earning capacity is at stake.
• Focus group testing of the case theory before trial. We run focus groups and mock trials on cases headed for litigation, which is uncommon at firms our size.

What Your Pedestrian Accident Case Is Worth

Pedestrian cases run the full range. A bruised knee that heals in six weeks is worth a few thousand dollars. A femur fracture that needs a rod and three months off work is worth six figures. A wrongful death claim is worth what a jury and a careful negotiation say it is. There is no formula. There is only the work of documenting damages fully and refusing to settle for what the carrier wants you to think the case is worth.

Economic damages. Past and future medical bills. Lost wages and lost earning capacity. Out-of-pocket expenses. Property damage to anything you were carrying. Home modifications if your injuries require them. These get added up and documented to the dollar.

Non-economic damages. Pain and suffering. Loss of consortium. Disfigurement. Loss of life’s pleasures. Pennsylvania does not cap non-economic damages in most pedestrian cases. The number depends on how the injuries actually affected your life, which is why we develop the human side of the case as carefully as the medical side.

Punitive damages, when the conduct warrants it. Drivers texting at the moment of impact. Drivers under the influence. Hit-and-run drivers. These cases support punitive damages on top of compensatory damages. Punitive damages are the legal system’s way of telling that driver, and every driver watching, that the conduct is unacceptable.

Documented results. The firm has recovered $335,000 for a pedestrian client with a tibial fracture (Pennsylvania, 2017). Our largest documented result is a $3.3 million wrongful death settlement involving a motorcycle and a bus, recognized as a Top 10 Pennsylvania wrongful death settlement in 2020 by TopVerdict.com. In one car accident case, we secured $247,500 against an insurance company’s opening offer of $12,000. The pattern holds: low first offers, complete documentation, and a willingness to try the case move the number where it should be.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Reviews represent individual experiences.

Pennsylvania Laws and Statutes Behind Your Claim

Two-year statute of limitations. Pennsylvania gives an injured pedestrian two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit (42 Pa.C.S. § 5524). Wait longer than that, and almost every case is gone, no matter how badly the driver hit you. Minors get a tolling exception until they turn 18 (42 Pa.C.S. § 5533), and limited discovery-rule exceptions exist for injuries that don’t surface immediately.

Six-month notice for government claims. If the City of Philadelphia, SEPTA, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or another government entity bears responsibility, you have six months from the date of the accident to file a formal notice of claim (42 Pa.C.S. § 5522). This rule traps people. A pedestrian hit by a SEPTA bus on Frankford Avenue, or injured when a malfunctioning traffic signal at a city-maintained intersection contributes to the crash, falls inside that six-month window. Call us early if a city vehicle, transit vehicle, or public roadway condition is part of the story.

Modified comparative negligence (51% bar). Pennsylvania is a modified comparative negligence state. As long as you are less than 51% at fault, you can still recover. Your recovery is reduced by your share of fault. A jury that finds you 20% at fault on a $200,000 case awards you $160,000. A jury that finds you 51% or more at fault awards you nothing. This is why we fight the fault narrative the carrier tries to build from the first day.

PA Limited Tort vs. Full Tort. Pennsylvania’s auto insurance system asks drivers to choose between Limited Tort and Full Tort coverage. Limited Tort drivers can usually only recover non-economic damages (pain and suffering) if their injuries meet the “serious injury” threshold. For pedestrians, here is the part most people miss: even if your auto policy is Limited Tort, exceptions can apply when you are struck as a pedestrian, particularly by certain commercial vehicles, by an out-of-state driver, or by a drunk driver. The analysis is fact-specific and worth a free phone call before you assume your tort election bars your case.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. When the driver who hit you has no insurance or not enough, your own auto policy’s UM/UIM coverage steps in if you (or in many cases a household resident) carries it. Pedestrians often assume they have no coverage because they were on foot, not in their car. The coverage follows the person, not the vehicle. We’ve recovered through UM/UIM coverage in cases where clients didn’t know they had it.

Why You Need a Philadelphia Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

You can handle a pedestrian claim yourself. People do, and they almost always recover less than the case is worth. Here is what changes when Greg Prosmushkin and his team take over the file.

Carriers stop calling you. Once we file our letter of representation, every call from the at-fault driver’s insurance company gets routed to us. No more recorded-statement traps. No more pressure to settle before you’ve finished treatment.

Investigation moves at the speed the case requires. Preservation letters out the same week. Witnesses interviewed before memories fade. Surveillance pulled before it’s overwritten. The Bucks County motorcycle case we resolved for $1 million pre-suit hinged on uncovering video of the truck driver running the stop sign, footage the defense would have been happy to let disappear.

Medical strategy gets coordinated. We work with the right specialists for the injuries you actually have, not just the ones the ER happened to call. Treatment continuity is what builds future-damages claims that hold up against defense medical exams.

Settlement value gets calibrated to what Philadelphia juries actually award. We know what Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas juries do with crosswalk cases at City Hall, what Bucks County juries do at the Doylestown courthouse, and what Montgomery County juries do at Norristown. The carrier knows we know. That changes the offer.

If the carrier won’t pay, we try the case. Greg is a Keenan Trial Institute Master Graduate (2018 through 2020) and holds an LL.M. in Trial Advocacy from Temple University Beasley School of Law. The firm runs focus groups and mock trials on litigation-bound cases, which is uncommon at firms our size. Carriers know which firms file suit and which ones blink. We’ve been on the file-and-try side of that reputation for 30 years.

How We Build Winning Pedestrian Accident Cases

Every case in the firm follows the same architecture, scaled to its facts. Some cases settle in months. Some take two years. The work is the same. The discipline is the same.

The Four Phases of Every Pedestrian Case

Phase 1: Investigation (weeks 1 through 8). We open the file the day you call. Preservation letters go out within 72 hours. Police reports, 911 audio, witness statements, surveillance footage, EDR data, cell records (where defensible), and scene photography all come in during this window. We assign an accident reconstructionist where speed or sight lines will be contested.

Phase 2: Medical development (months 2 through 12). Treatment continues. We coordinate with the right specialists. Imaging, physical therapy notes, and surgical records build the medical narrative. Where future damages are at stake, we retain a life-care planner and a vocational expert.

Phase 3: Demand and negotiation (months 6 through 18). When medical treatment reaches maximum improvement, we issue a demand package. The package includes liability analysis, medical summary, wage-loss documentation, and any expert reports needed to support the number. Most cases negotiate to resolution in this phase.

Phase 4: Litigation, if needed (months 12 through 36). When the carrier won’t pay fair value, we file suit. Discovery, depositions, expert disclosures, dispositive motions, and trial preparation follow. We run focus groups on cases headed to verdict. Most filed cases still settle, but they settle for trial-ready numbers because the carrier knows we’re trial-ready.

Common Causes of Pedestrian Accidents in Philadelphia

Philadelphia pedestrian crashes cluster around the same handful of causes. Knowing them changes how we investigate the file.

Distracted driving. Drivers texting, reading email, or operating apps account for a disproportionate share of pedestrian crashes citywide. NHTSA data shows that taking eyes off the road for five seconds at 55 mph covers the length of a football field with no one watching the windshield. Roosevelt Boulevard, where Philadelphia’s speed-camera enforcement program documented hundreds of thousands of violations in its first months of operation, is the most concentrated example. [VERIFY: cite current Vision Zero or PennDOT data for Roosevelt Boulevard speed-camera enforcement results.]

Failure to yield in crosswalks. The standard pattern: driver approaching the intersection, pedestrian already in the crosswalk, driver focused on oncoming cars instead of the crosswalk. Multi-lane streets like Aramingo Avenue, Frankford Avenue, and Cottman Avenue see this constantly because drivers in lane two cannot see what the driver in lane one stopped for.

Speeding in residential corridors. Streets with posted limits of 25 to 30 mph routinely see drivers at 40-plus. Bustleton Avenue, Castor Avenue, and Grant Avenue all carry residential pedestrian traffic mixed with through-vehicle traffic running well over limit.

Drunk and impaired driving. Late-night pedestrian crashes around bar and restaurant corridors disproportionately involve impaired drivers. Pennsylvania’s Dram Shop Act (47 P.S. § 4-497) sometimes opens an additional path of recovery against the licensed establishment that overserved the driver.

Hit-and-run. Drivers flee pedestrian crashes for a thousand bad reasons. The case is not over when they do. Surveillance, license plate readers, and Pennsylvania’s hit-and-run statute (75 Pa.C.S. § 3742) give us tools. UM coverage on the pedestrian’s own policy often covers the loss when the driver is never identified or has no insurance.

Defective intersections and signal failures. Malfunctioning traffic signals. Missing stop signs. Faded crosswalk paint. Inadequate street lighting. Uneven sidewalks. When the City of Philadelphia or PennDOT bears responsibility for a road condition that contributed to the crash, the six-month notice rule kicks in and the case has to be opened immediately.

SEPTA buses and mass transit vehicles. Bus left-turns at intersections kill more pedestrians per mile than passenger vehicles do. Cases involving SEPTA require a different set of preservation moves and run on the city/transit liability clock.

Pedestrian Accident Statistics for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania

The numbers behind the cases. Every figure below is sourced. Numbers without a footnote don’t appear on this page.

Types of Pedestrian Accidents We Handle

Every pedestrian case is built on its own facts, but they tend to cluster into recognizable types. Each type carries its own investigation playbook.

Long-Term Effects of Pedestrian Accident Injuries

The day-of injuries are often only part of the story. Pedestrian impacts deliver more force per square inch than almost any other accident type because the human body has no protective metal cage between it and the vehicle. Months and years later, the damages keep adding up.

Traumatic brain injuries. Concussions diagnosed at the ER often turn into post-concussion syndrome lasting months. Moderate and severe TBIs change personality, cognition, and earning capacity for life. We retain neurologists, neuropsychologists, and life-care planners to document the full course.

Orthopedic injuries. Femur fractures, tibial fractures, pelvic fractures, and complex foot and ankle injuries. Hardware sometimes stays in for life. Arthritis develops in joints that took the impact. Surgical revisions years later are common.

Spinal cord injuries. Partial and complete paralysis. Lifetime care costs run into the millions. Recoveries must account for home modifications, ongoing medical care, durable medical equipment, and lost earning capacity over the client’s full life expectancy.

Internal injuries. Organ damage often presents days after the crash. Splenic lacerations, lung contusions, and intra-abdominal bleeding can require emergency surgery and produce long-term complications. This is why we tell every pedestrian client to seek medical attention even when they feel okay walking away.

Psychological injuries. PTSD after a pedestrian impact is real and compensable. Fear of crossing streets. Sleep disruption. Avoidance behaviors that affect work and relationships. We work with therapists and treating psychiatrists to document the course of psychological injury alongside the physical.

Disfigurement and scarring. Road rash, surgical scars, and amputation cases all carry separate damages categories under Pennsylvania law. Photo documentation early and over time becomes part of the demand package.

“Greg professionally battled for me and won with great results.”Said Elmenyawy, GProsLaw client

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have to file a pedestrian accident lawsuit in Pennsylvania?

Two years from the date of the crash for most claims (42 Pa.C.S. § 5524). If a city, transit, or state entity is involved, you have only six months to file a formal notice of claim (42 Pa.C.S. § 5522). Minors get tolling exceptions, and discovery-rule exceptions exist in narrow circumstances. Call us early. Missed deadlines end cases.

Can I still recover if the police report says I was partly at fault?

Yes, as long as you are less than 51% at fault under Pennsylvania’s modified comparative negligence rule. Your recovery is reduced by your fault percentage. A police report is one piece of evidence, not the final word. We routinely overcome unfavorable police narratives with surveillance, witness testimony, and accident reconstruction.

What if the driver who hit me has no insurance, or fled the scene?

Your own auto policy’s uninsured motorist (UM) coverage typically covers pedestrian claims when the at-fault driver is unidentified or uninsured. The coverage follows the person, not the vehicle. If you live with a relative who carries UM coverage, it may extend to you. The analysis is fact-specific. We’ve recovered through UM in cases where clients didn’t know they had it.

Does my Limited Tort election on my auto policy bar my pedestrian claim?

Often, no. Pennsylvania’s Limited Tort rules contain pedestrian-specific exceptions for crashes involving commercial vehicles, out-of-state drivers, drunk drivers, and certain other circumstances. Even when Limited Tort applies, the “serious injury” threshold itself is broader than most people assume. Don’t take a free phone call off the table because of an assumption about your tort election.

Who pays my medical bills while my case is pending?

Pennsylvania’s no-fault auto system means your own auto policy’s medical-benefits coverage (PIP) often pays first, even for pedestrian injuries, up to the policy limit. After PIP exhausts, your health insurance carries the rest, subject to subrogation. We coordinate the bills so you focus on healing, not paperwork.

How much does it cost to hire your firm?

Nothing upfront. We work on a 100% contingency fee, which means we only get paid if we recover compensation for you. The fee is a percentage of the recovery, agreed to in writing under Pennsylvania Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5 before we start. If we don’t recover, you don’t pay an attorney fee.

How long will my pedestrian accident case take?

Range, not promise: straightforward cases with clear liability and short medical courses can resolve in 6 to 12 months. Cases requiring surgery, ongoing treatment, or contested liability typically take 18 months to 3 years. Cases that proceed through trial sometimes longer. Speed and value usually trade against each other. We move as fast as full documentation allows.

Can I switch lawyers if I already hired someone and feel my case is being undervalued?

Yes. We take over personal injury cases regularly. In one documented case, a prior attorney valued the matter at under $100,000 and we recovered $500,000 (a 5x increase). The prior firm gets a fee share for the work they actually did; you do not pay double. If a current settlement offer feels wrong, the consultation to get a second opinion is free.

What if the driver who hit me works for SEPTA, the City of Philadelphia, or another government entity?

The six-month formal notice-of-claim deadline (42 Pa.C.S. § 5522) is non-negotiable. Without it, the case is gone before the two-year statute of limitations is even close. Call us within days, not weeks, if a city vehicle, SEPTA bus, paratransit, or public-roadway condition is part of your story.

Do you speak my language?

Our team handles cases in English, Russian, and Spanish, and the firm has staff capacity in Polish, Ukrainian, and Italian as well. Tell us which language you’re most comfortable in when you call. We’ll match you with the right team member.

Talk to a Philadelphia Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

Your teammate for justice. Thirty years of representing injured pedestrians and their families across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with the trial credentials and the local-market knowledge to negotiate from strength.