You hit a parked car and left your information: the real issues are the report's damage description, not leaving the scene

Attorney Answer

Leaving your information after striking an unattended vehicle is what New York asks of a driver in that position, so the leaving-the-scene question is not your problem. The live issues are narrower and more manageable: how much damage you actually caused, and a police report that describes damage you say you did not cause.

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 600 sets a driver's duties after an incident. For property damage, subdivision 1 requires a driver who knows or has cause to know that another person's property has been damaged in an incident involving the vehicle they were operating to stop before leaving the place where the damage occurred and to give their license, insurance identification information, name, address and license number to the party who sustained the damage — and, where that person is not present at the scene, to report the incident as soon as physically able to the nearest police station or judicial officer. A violation of that paragraph is a traffic infraction carrying a fine and the possibility of a short jail term. On your account you stopped and left your identifying information, which is the conduct the statute is asking for. If a ticket, summons or charge has issued anyway, that is a separate matter from the damage claim, and you should have a New York attorney review it before you discuss the incident with anyone other than your own insurer.

A police accident report is evidence, not a verdict. An officer who arrives after the fact records what they are told and what they observe, and the description of damage in a report is routinely wrong about which panel, how much and how old. Your video and your photographs are the better evidence of what you actually caused, and pre-existing damage to a front bumper is exactly the kind of thing that gets swept into a claim after a minor contact. Causation is the point here: the owner may recover for what your contact caused, and no more.

The owner's claim against you would be an action to recover damages for an injury to property, which CPLR 214 requires to be commenced within three years of the date of the damage. If the owner's own conduct is in play, CPLR 1411(a) is the fault rule: "Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, in any action to recover damages for personal injury, injury to property, or wrongful death, the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or to the decedent, including contributory negligence or assumption of risk, shall not bar recovery. The amount of damages otherwise recoverable shall be diminished in the proportion which the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or decedent bears to the culpable conduct which caused the damages." That said, where the car was parked, and whether signs had been removed for replacement, is unlikely to carry much weight — a car parked in a questionable spot is not what caused a passing vehicle to strike it, and a parking violation is a matter between that owner and the municipality, not a defense to contact.

What you can do

1. Preserve the video and the photograph in their original files, with the timestamps intact, and back them up somewhere you will still have them in a year.

2. Report the incident to your own insurer promptly and give them the video and photographs at the same time, so the damage description is on file from the start.

3. Ask the reporting agency what its process is for correcting an accident report — but because a violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 600 is a chargeable infraction, have a New York attorney handle any written submission to that agency rather than writing out your own account of the incident.

4. Route any demand for payment through your insurer instead of paying or promising anything directly.

5. Do not repair or dispose of your own vehicle's evidence of the contact — the paint transfer and its height help show what happened.

6. If any ticket, summons or charge has been issued, have a New York attorney review it before you respond to it.

⏱ Time limits apply. CPLR 214 gives three years for an action to recover damages for an injury to property, measured from the date of the contact, and a claim against a public corporation runs on far shorter periods under General Municipal Law §§ 50-e(1)(a) and 50-i(1)(c). Which period applies depends on your facts, and no date is calculated here. Have a New York attorney confirm the deadlines that apply to your situation.