Another driver intentionally hit my truck on city property in Las Cruces and I missed the 90-day notice deadline

If you were driving between job sites in Las Cruces and another driver deliberately rammed your vehicle, missing the government notice deadline probably does not mean you lost everything.

It usually means you may have lost the claim against the government owner of the property.

That's a big difference.

The 90-day problem is about the public entity, not the whole crash

New Mexico has a nasty little trap for injury claims against government bodies. If your injury involves a city, county, state agency, public university, or other public entity, the New Mexico Tort Claims Act usually requires written notice within 90 days of the incident.

Not "someone at the office knew." Not "the police came." Not "I filled out an incident report." Actual notice rules get argued hard, and regular people get burned by this all the time.

If the road rage incident happened on government property in Las Cruces - say a city-owned parking area, a municipal building access road, a county facility lot, or state property near an agency site - that 90-day notice issue matters only if you were trying to make a claim against that public entity. Usually that would mean arguing the property was dangerous, security was inadequate, traffic design was defective, barriers were missing, or some public employee contributed to what happened.

If that 90 days passed, the government side of the case may be in serious trouble.

But the road rage driver who intentionally hit you? That person is still a separate defendant.

An intentional ram is not just a normal fender-bender

This matters because insurers love to blur everything into "an accident."

A road rage ram is often an intentional tort, or at minimum reckless conduct way beyond careless driving. If the other driver swerved into you on purpose on public property near a job site stop, the core claim is still against that driver.

So if you're panicking because someone finally said, "Did you send notice to the city within 90 days?" the first thing to sort out is this: were you actually planning to sue the city, county, or state agency?

A lot of people weren't. They just didn't realize the property ownership would become an issue later.

That's where it gets ugly in Las Cruces. A crash near a government building, public works yard, city lot, or NMSU-adjacent property can turn into a map fight fast. One parcel is public, the next one isn't. One lane is city-maintained, the entrance is private, the shoulder belongs to somebody else. You need the exact location nailed down, not a vague "near downtown" or "by the courthouse."

If you were driving between job sites, workers' comp is a huge piece of this

As a project manager traveling for work, you were probably in the course and scope of employment if you were moving between sites, checking on crews, picking up materials, or heading to a scheduled work meeting.

That means workers' comp may be available even though this happened in a vehicle and even though another driver caused it on purpose.

In New Mexico, workers' comp disputes go through the Workers' Compensation Administration. For somebody without great health insurance - or no health insurance at all - this is often the first real source of medical coverage and partial wage benefits after a crash.

And yes, even if your employer's first reaction was basically "walk it off," that doesn't decide the claim.

A project manager with a neck injury, shoulder injury, back injury, concussion symptoms, or a messed-up knee after getting rammed in traffic can have a valid workers' comp claim because the trip itself was part of the job.

That claim does not depend on the 90-day Tort Claims Act notice to the government.

Different system. Different deadline problem.

You may also have an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim

Road rage drivers are often underinsured, and sometimes flat-out broke.

If the other driver intentionally hit you, their insurer may try to deny coverage by arguing intentional acts aren't covered under that liability policy. That leaves you looking at your own UM/UIM coverage on your work vehicle or personal policy, depending on what you were driving and what policies apply.

So even when the public-entity notice is dead, there can still be money in play through:

• the at-fault driver personally
• workers' comp
• UM/UIM coverage
• possibly a commercial auto policy tied to your employer

This is why "you missed the notice deadline" is bad news, but not automatically total disaster.

What can still save a government-side claim after 90 days?

Usually, not much. But these fights come down to details.

Possible arguments that sometimes get raised:

• the public entity had actual notice of the occurrence and injury
• the wrong property owner was identified and the real owner is private, not public
• the injured person was incapacitated in a way that affects notice issues
• the claim isn't really about dangerous public property at all, so the public entity was never the main target

A police report from Las Cruces Police or a crash investigated near I-10, I-25, or a city facility does not automatically satisfy Tort Claims Act notice.

That's the part people hate hearing, because it sounds absurd. But that's how New Mexico works.

The location details matter more than people think

Spring in southern New Mexico brings high winds and dust, especially around I-10 and I-25. That can complicate visibility and crash reports. But if this was true road rage - brake-checking, following, swerving, then an intentional hit - the weather is background, not the main story.

What matters now is pinning down:

the exact property owner, the exact date you knew you were injured, whether any written notice went out, whether you were on the clock, and what insurance policies cover the vehicle.

If the crash happened in one of those weird public-access areas in Las Cruces where city property blends into parking lots, frontage roads, and agency entrances, don't assume the government notice issue is hopeless until the ownership is confirmed.

But don't assume a police report handled it either. New Mexico is full of deadline traps, and this is one of the worst.