Austin and central Texas · Travis · Williamson · Hays · Bastrop
Hit by a car while riding a bike in Austin
Texas law puts a person on a bicycle in the same legal position as a driver, with the same right to the road and the same protection when someone takes it away. What it does not give you is a number to point at when a driver passes too close. Here is how these claims actually work. Se habla español.
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The short answer
A person riding a bicycle on a Texas road has the rights and duties of a driver. The claim after a crash is an ordinary motor vehicle claim: the driver who caused it is responsible, their liability insurance is the first place the money comes from, and your own auto policy can be reached even though you were not in a car. The two things that make bicycle cases different are the fault argument the insurer will run and the physical evidence that disappears within days.
You had the same right to the lane a driver has
Section 551.101 says a person operating a bicycle has the rights and duties applicable to a driver operating a vehicle, except where the bicycle chapter changes a rule or where a rule cannot by its nature apply. That is the sentence the whole case rests on. Being on two wheels does not reduce your right of way, and it does not reduce what the driver owed you.
People ask this as "do bikes have the same rights as cars in Texas" or "was I even allowed to be in the road".
The driver who hit you is the defendant, and their insurer is who you deal with
This is a motor vehicle claim. The driver's liability coverage responds first. If they carried only the state minimum, or nothing at all, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can reach the gap even though the bicycle is not a covered vehicle, because that coverage follows the person.
People ask this as "who pays if a car hits my bike" or "my bike isn't insured, does that matter".
There is no three-foot passing law in Texas
A great many pages on this subject say there is. The statewide rule is that a passing driver shall pass to the left at a safe distance, with no measurement attached. That absence changes how the case is proved, and it is explained in full below.
People ask this as "how close can a car legally pass a bicycle in Texas".
Fault is apportioned by percentage, and 51 percent is the cliff
Texas assigns each responsible party a percentage. A claimant recovers nothing once their own share passes 50 percent, and below that the recovery is reduced by their share. Every argument an insurer makes about your clothing, your lights, your lane position or your helmet is aimed at that percentage.
People ask this as "can I still sue if I was partly at fault".
The single most time-sensitive step is preserving what the driver's vehicle recorded and what the nearby cameras saw. Businesses along Austin arterials typically overwrite footage in days, and a bicycle case often turns on ten seconds of it.
What Texas law actually gives a rider, and asks of one
Chapter 551 of the Transportation Code is short. It is worth knowing precisely, because an insurance adjuster will quote pieces of it back at you inaccurately.
Riding to the right, and the four exceptions that swallow the rule
Section 551.103 says a rider moving slower than other traffic shall ride as near as practicable to the right curb or edge. It then lists four situations where that does not apply: passing another vehicle going the same way, preparing to turn left, avoiding a condition on the roadway including a fixed or moving object, a parked or moving vehicle, a pedestrian, an animal or a surface hazard, and riding in an outside lane less than fourteen feet wide with no adjacent bike lane, or too narrow for a bicycle and a car to travel side by side safely. On most Austin streets at least one exception applies.
People ask this as "am I supposed to ride in the gutter" or "the driver said I should have been further right".
Two riders side by side is legal
Section 551.103(c) permits riding two abreast. On a laned roadway the pair must stay in a single lane and may not impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic. More than two abreast is allowed only on a part of a roadway set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles.
People ask this as "is it illegal to ride two across in Texas".
One-way streets with two or more lanes
Section 551.103(b) allows a rider on a one-way roadway with two or more marked lanes to ride as near as practicable to the left curb or edge instead of the right. Downtown Austin is full of exactly that street.
Lights and a brake, at night
Section 551.104 requires a brake capable of skidding a braked wheel on dry, level, clean pavement. At night it requires a white front lamp visible from at least 500 feet, and on the rear either an approved red reflector visible from 50 to 300 feet in a car's headlights or a red lamp visible from 500 feet. A reflector alone satisfies the rear requirement. A front reflector does not satisfy the front requirement — the statute says lamp.
People ask this as "do I have to have lights on my bike in Texas" or "they say I had no lights, is my case over".
Texas has no adult bicycle helmet law
The state imposes no helmet requirement on adults, and Chapter 551 contains no helmet provision at all. Local authorities have power under Section 551.106 to regulate the operation of bicycles, so a specific ordinance has to be checked in the specific city. Whether a helmet was worn is a separate argument from whether a law was broken.
People ask this as "does not wearing a helmet hurt my case in Texas".
Carrying a passenger or cargo
Section 551.102 requires the rider to ride on a permanent and regular seat, prohibits carrying more people than the bicycle is designed or equipped to carry, and prohibits carrying anything that prevents the rider from keeping at least one hand on the handlebars.
A parent may not knowingly let a child break these rules
Section 551.101(b) puts that duty on a parent or guardian directly. It matters when the injured rider is a child and the driver's insurer starts looking for someone else to blame.
The three-foot rule that Texas does not have
This deserves its own section because getting it wrong costs riders cases. Many states set a minimum passing distance in feet. Texas does not. The rule that governs a driver passing a bicycle is the general one in Section 545.053(a)(1): an operator passing another vehicle shall pass to the left of the other vehicle at a safe distance, and may not move back to the right until safely clear of the vehicle passed. A cyclist is the operator of a vehicle under Section 551.101, so that rule applies to a car passing a bike.
A safe distance is a standard, not a measurement. Nothing in the Transportation Code turns eighteen inches into a violation and thirty-seven inches into compliance. What that means practically is that the police officer at the scene often writes no citation for a close pass, because there is no numeric line to say was crossed. Riders read the absence of a ticket as a finding that the driver did nothing wrong. It is not one.
The absence of a number changes where the case gets decided rather than whether it can be won. A standard like safe distance is decided by a jury on the facts: the width of the lane, the speed, the presence of an adjacent lane the driver could have used, the weather, the traffic, the road surface, and what the driver could see. Those facts come from measurements of the roadway, the vehicle damage and contact points, and video. They do not come from a citation.
Some Texas cities have adopted their own passing ordinances, and local rules are permitted: Section 551.106 gives a local authority power to regulate the operation of bicycles. A city ordinance is a live question in any given case and has to be checked against the current city code for the place the crash happened, rather than assumed from a list on a law firm website.
The practical lesson for a rider: after a close-pass crash, do not accept "no ticket, no case". Photograph the lane, measure it, note whether a second lane was open, and get the video before it is gone.
If a page tells you Texas requires three feet, or six feet for a truck, treat everything else on that page with the same suspicion. The statewide standard is a safe distance, unquantified, and it has been that way throughout.
The crosswalk offense most drivers have never heard of
Section 545.428 makes it a criminal offense for a person, with criminal negligence, to operate a motor vehicle within the area of a crosswalk and cause bodily injury to a pedestrian or to a person operating a bicycle, a motor-assisted scooter, an electric personal assistive mobility device, a neighborhood electric vehicle or a golf cart.
The grading is serious. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor, and it rises to a state jail felony where the person struck suffered serious bodily injury. The statute was added in 2021 by Senate Bill 1055 and amended in 2023 by House Bill 2190, which is recent enough that a page written before then does not contain it.
There is an affirmative defense written into the section: it is a defense that at the time of the offense the person struck was violating a provision of the subtitle relating to walking, movement or operation in a crosswalk or on a roadway. So the rider's own conduct is in play, and that is one more reason the details of lane position and signal compliance get fought over.
A criminal charge is not the civil claim, and a civil claim does not require one. What the section does is establish a standard the legislature wrote down for exactly this situation, in a state where the passing distance was left unquantified. Where a driver turns across a crossing and hits a rider in it, this provision is directly on point.
How these crashes actually happen
Bicycle crashes fall into a small number of repeating patterns. Naming the one that happened to you helps, because each pattern has its own proof problem.
The right hook
A driver passes a rider and then turns right across the rider's path, or turns right into a driveway or parking lot from a lane beside a bike lane. The driver almost always says the rider came out of nowhere. The geometry says otherwise: the driver passed the rider seconds earlier and therefore saw them.
People describe this as "the car passed me then cut me off turning".
The left cross
An oncoming driver turns left across the rider's lane at an intersection or a driveway. This is the classic failure to yield, and it is the same claim as when the same driver turns left into a motorcycle or a car.
People describe this as "they turned left right in front of me".
Dooring
A person in a parked car opens a door into the path of a rider. Austin has miles of bike lane painted directly beside parallel parking, which puts riders in the door zone by design. The claim runs against the person who opened the door, and where that person was working, against their employer.
People describe this as "somebody opened their door on me" or "I got doored".
The driveway and alley pull-out
A driver emerging from a driveway, alley or parking garage rolls into the sidewalk or bike lane while looking left for cars. Section 552.006(c) requires the operator of a vehicle emerging from or entering an alley, building, private road or driveway to stop and yield to a pedestrian approaching on a sidewalk that crosses it.
The rear-end strike
A driver hits a rider from behind in a travel lane or bike lane. These produce the worst injuries and the least dispute about mechanism, but the insurer will still argue about lighting and visibility if it happened after dark.
The unsafe pass
The driver passes too close and either contacts the rider or forces them into a curb, a parked car or a fall. A fall without contact is still a claim; no touch is required for a driver to have caused a crash.
People describe this as "they buzzed me and I went down".
The intersection sweep and the failure to look
A driver at a stop sign or a red light looks for a car-sized object, sees a gap, and pulls out. The rider was inside that gap the whole time. This is a perception failure and it is the driver's to answer for.
Road defect and construction-zone falls
Plate steel over a trench, an unmarked drop-off, a grate running the wrong direction, gravel left across a lane. These are claims against a contractor or a government body rather than a driver, and the government route has its own short notice deadline. See the deadlines section.
The arguments an insurer will run at you, and what answers them
Bicycle claims draw a specific set of defences. They are predictable, which means they are answerable if the evidence is collected early.
| What the adjuster says | What actually decides it |
|---|---|
| "You should have been further right." | Section 551.103 lists four exceptions to the ride-right rule, including a lane too narrow to share and any surface hazard, parked vehicle or pedestrian. The lane width and what was in it are measurable facts. |
| "You had no lights." | Section 551.104 governs, and only at night. A rear reflector of an approved type satisfies the rear requirement without a lamp. Where lighting is genuinely absent it is a percentage argument, not a bar to recovery. |
| "You weren't wearing a helmet." | Texas has no adult helmet law. The absence of a helmet is not a violation and does not cause a collision. It gets raised because it works on people who do not know the law. |
| "You came out of nowhere." | Vehicle damage location, the point of contact on the bicycle, the driver's own path in the seconds before, and any video. Where the driver passed you first, they saw you first. |
| "You were on the sidewalk." | State law does not prohibit sidewalk riding; local ordinances may, and have to be checked for the specific place. A sidewalk rule is a percentage argument about the crash, not a licence to hit someone. |
| "You ran the light." | Signal timing data, video, and independent witnesses. Assertion by the person who hit you is not evidence. |
| "No ticket was written, so nobody was at fault." | Citation and civil liability are separate questions decided by different people on different standards. A close pass has no numeric threshold to cite, which is exactly why no ticket gets written. |
Each of these is aimed at the percentage in Chapter 33. Texas reduces a recovery by the claimant's share of responsibility and bars it entirely once that share exceeds 50 percent, so an insurer that can move you from 20 percent to 51 percent pays nothing at all. That is the whole game, and it is why the early evidence matters more than the early phone call from the adjuster.
What the Austin crash record shows
These figures come from the City of Austin's own crash record for calendar year 2025, pulled on 2026-08-16. They cover crashes inside the Austin full-purpose city limits.
A bicycle was one of the units in 242 reported crashes in 2025. 221 people were hurt in them, 22 of the riders suffered a suspected serious injury, and 5 people were killed. That is roughly one reported bicycle crash every thirty-six hours inside the city.
The other vehicle was a passenger car in 138 of them and an SUV, van or pickup in 85. The height and mass difference between those two categories is the difference between a rider going over a hood and a rider going under a bumper, and it shows up in the injury pattern.
Most of these crashes happen on ordinary city streets rather than highways: 195 were off the state highway system and 47 were on it. The posted limit where they happened clusters in the mid range — 79 at 35 mph, 41 at 45, 39 at 30 and 27 at 40. The arterial with a painted bike lane is where riders get hit, not the interstate.
22 of the year's bicycle crashes happened between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., and 2 of the 5 deaths fell in that window. Roughly nine percent of the crashes carried forty percent of the fatalities.
| Year | Cyclists killed | Cyclists seriously injured |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3 | 26 |
| 2022 | 1 | 29 |
| 2023 | 6 | 24 |
| 2024 | 3 | 27 |
| 2025 | 5 | 22 |
City of Austin Crash Report Data, crash-level records, dataset y2wy-tgr5, filtered on is_deleted = false. Serious injury is the CRIS "suspected serious injury" classification. Pulled 2026-08-16.
Two things this dataset cannot tell you, and no honest page should pretend otherwise. It stops at the Austin city boundary, so it holds nothing for Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Kyle or any other suburb. And street names in it fragment across several spellings, which makes the largest single street bucket for a bicycle crash in the entire year a number in the single digits. Any site presenting a ranked list of Austin's most dangerous streets for cyclists built from this data is presenting noise.
Where people ride in Austin, and what goes wrong there
No crash count is attached to any road named here, for the reason given above. What follows is the physical geography, which is what a lawyer needs to understand the crash.
The downtown grid
Guadalupe, Lavaca, Brazos, Colorado, San Jacinto, Trinity, Third and Fourth. One-way streets with multiple lanes, frequent driveways and garage exits, and delivery vehicles stopped in the bike lane forcing riders left into traffic. Section 551.103(b) permits riding to the left edge on these streets and drivers routinely do not expect it.
Lamar Boulevard and Congress Avenue
The two north-south spines. Multiple lanes, heavy turning movement across the curb lane, transit stops, and long stretches where the bike lane sits between moving traffic and parked cars. The right hook and the door-zone crash both live here.
The Drag and the campus edge
Guadalupe alongside the University of Texas, plus Dean Keeton, Speedway, San Jacinto and the streets feeding into West Campus. Dense pedestrian volume, buses pulling to and from the curb, and a constant flow of riders and scooters, much of it after dark.
East Austin
Manor Road, East Cesar Chavez, East Sixth, Pleasant Valley, Airport Boulevard and the streets around Mueller. A mix of new protected lanes and old narrow streets with no shoulder, which means the legal lane position changes block to block.
South Austin
South First, South Congress, South Lamar, Barton Springs Road, Riverside, Oltorf, William Cannon and Slaughter. Wide fast arterials with long gaps between signals, which is the profile that produces high-speed strikes.
The Lady Bird Lake trail system
The Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail and the bridges and crossings that connect it — Pfluger, Lamar, South First, Congress. The dangerous points are where the trail meets a street, because a driver on the street is watching for cars and a rider on the trail arrives at speed.
Shoal Creek, Walnut Creek and the greenbelts
Shoal Creek Boulevard, the Southern Walnut Creek Trail, the Violet Crown and the Barton Creek Greenbelt. Off-street riding shifts the analysis: a crash with a maintenance vehicle, a surface defect or another trail user is a different claim from a crash with a car, and premises and governmental questions come into it.
The suburbs and the county roads
Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville, Hutto, Kyle, Buda, Dripping Springs, Bee Cave, Lakeway, Manor, Taylor and Bastrop. Ranch-to-market roads with no shoulder and 55 or 60 mph traffic, the Hill Country climbs west of the city, and RM 620 and RM 2222 where recreational riding meets commuter traffic. A crash out here is filed in Williamson, Hays, Bastrop or Travis County depending on where it happened.
Which county the crash happened in decides where the case is filed and how the docket moves. Travis County civil matters are heard downtown, Williamson County in Georgetown, Hays County in San Marcos and Bastrop County in Bastrop. You do not have to come to Austin to hire a lawyer for any of them.
Electric bicycles, scooters and everything in between
Texas classifies these devices separately, and the classification changes which rules apply to the person riding.
An electric bicycle is a bicycle
Section 551.107 provides that Subtitles A, B and D and Chapter 551A do not apply to the operation of an electric bicycle, which places e-bike riders under the bicycle rules rather than the motor-vehicle licensing and registration rules. Section 551.002 confirms that a provision applying to a bicycle applies to an electric bicycle unless stated otherwise.
People ask this as "do I need a licence for an e-bike in Texas" or "is an e-bike a motor vehicle".
The motor has to cut out
Section 551.107(b) requires that the electric motor disengage or cease to function either when the operator stops pedalling or when the brakes are applied. A device whose motor keeps driving the wheel independently is outside the electric bicycle definition, and a different set of rules applies to it.
Class 3 has an age floor
Section 551.107(c) prohibits operating a Class 3 electric bicycle, as defined by Section 664.001, unless the operator is at least fifteen. A person under fifteen may still ride on a Class 3 bicycle as a passenger.
Motor-assisted scooters are their own category
Subchapter E of Chapter 551 defines and governs the motor-assisted scooter separately, including where it may be operated on roadways and sidewalks. The shared scooters on Austin streets sit in this category rather than the bicycle one, and the crosswalk offense in Section 545.428 expressly covers a person operating one.
People ask this as "is a Lime or Bird scooter treated like a bike".
What none of this changes
The driver who hits you still owes you ordinary care, their liability insurance still responds, and the two-year filing deadline is the same. Classification affects the rules you were riding under. It does not create a category of person a driver is free to hit.
Which insurance actually pays when you were on a bicycle
The most common wrong assumption is that having no insurance on the bicycle means having no coverage. Several layers can apply, and they are pursued together.
The driver's liability coverage
The first source. Texas requires a driver to carry at least $30,000 for bodily injury to one person, $60,000 for two or more people in one collision, and $25,000 for property damage. Those are the statutory floors in Section 601.072, not what a serious injury costs.
Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
This is the layer riders overlook. UM and UIM coverage protects an insured who is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured or underinsured vehicle. It follows the person rather than the car, so a cyclist struck by an uninsured driver can often claim on their own auto policy, or on a policy in their household, even though they were on a bicycle at the time.
People ask this as "the driver had no insurance, is that it" or "can I use my own car insurance if I was on my bike".
Personal injury protection and medical payments coverage
Texas auto policies carry PIP unless it was rejected in writing. It pays medical bills and a portion of lost income regardless of fault, and it pays early, which matters when treatment starts before liability is resolved.
Health insurance, and the reimbursement claim that follows
Health coverage should be used for treatment. Expect the plan to assert a right of reimbursement out of any recovery. That claim is negotiable and handling it is part of the case rather than an afterthought at the end.
Homeowner or renter liability, on the other side
Where the person responsible was not driving — someone who opened a car door, or a dog owner whose animal ran into the roadway — a homeowner or renter policy can be the responding coverage instead of an auto policy.
A commercial policy behind a work vehicle
If the driver was working, their employer's commercial coverage generally sits behind them and carries far higher limits than a personal policy. Establishing the driver was in the course of employment is often the single most valuable fact in the case.
What to do after a bicycle crash
Some of this is only possible in the first hour, and some of it is only possible in the first week.
Call the police and insist on a written report
Section 550.021 requires a driver involved in a collision likely to result in injury to stop, return if they did not stop, determine whether anyone needs aid, and remain. Section 550.023 requires them to give their name, address, vehicle registration number and the name of their liability insurer, to show a licence if asked, and to render reasonable assistance. A written report captures all of that.
Do not let anyone move the bicycle before it is photographed
Where the bike ended up, where the debris fell and where the vehicle stopped are the geometry of the crash. Photograph the bike from several angles including the drivetrain side, the wheels, and the point of contact.
Photograph the roadway itself
The lane width, the bike lane markings or their absence, the parked cars, the sight lines, the signal, the sun angle, any construction. Section 551.103's exceptions turn on precisely these facts, and by next week the cones will have moved.
Keep the bicycle, the helmet and the clothing
Do not repair the bike and do not throw out a cracked helmet. They are physical evidence of the forces involved, and a helmet that failed is evidence of a head impact.
Look for cameras the same day
Businesses, doorbells, buses, parked cars with recording systems, and other riders with handlebar or helmet cameras. Most systems overwrite within days. Ask immediately and in writing.
Get names before people leave
Witnesses at a bicycle crash disperse quickly. A phone number written down at the scene is worth more than a description of someone who "saw the whole thing".
Go to the emergency department the same day
A rider who feels able to walk away often has a fracture, a concussion or an internal injury that presents hours later. A same-day record also removes the gap in treatment that every insurer argues from.
Say nothing recorded to the other insurer
The driver's carrier will call quickly and ask for a recorded statement. There is no obligation to give one, and questions about lane position and lighting are asked for a reason.
The injuries, and why documentation drives the claim
A bicycle offers no structure between the rider and the vehicle. The injuries that follow are the ones the collision physics predict: clavicle and scapula fractures from the shoulder strike, wrist and forearm fractures from the outstretched arm, hip and pelvic fractures from a side impact, tibial plateau and ankle injuries where the bike goes with the rider, road rash that scars, and head injury with or without loss of consciousness.
Concussion is the injury most often missed on the day. A rider who declined transport, went home, and woke up unable to concentrate at work has a real injury with an incomplete record. Symptoms worth reporting to a doctor and worth writing down at home include headache, light sensitivity, ringing, sleep disruption, irritability, word-finding trouble and difficulty holding attention through a normal workday.
Documentation drives the value of the claim, because the medical record is what an adjuster and a jury read. Gaps in treatment, missed appointments and a first visit three weeks after the crash all get used. Continuous care from the day of the crash forward is both better medicine and better evidence.
Lost income needs its own record. Days missed, shifts covered by someone else, work you can no longer do the same way, and the physical demands of your actual job should be documented as they happen rather than reconstructed at the end.
This page explains what the law and the record require. It gives no opinion about what any particular injury is worth, and no page can, because the answer depends on facts specific to one person.
Deadlines, and the one that is much shorter than you think
The general rule is two years. Section 16.003 requires a person to bring suit for personal injury not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues, and the same two-year period applies to a claim for injury resulting in death, running from the date of death.
The deadline that catches riders is a different one. Where the crash involved a government vehicle, or where the claim is about the road itself — a construction zone, a defect, a missing barrier — the claim runs against a governmental unit under the Texas Tort Claims Act, and that Act requires notice of the claim not later than six months after the incident. Section 101.101(b) then ratifies city charter and ordinance provisions requiring notice within a shorter charter period.
The City of Austin instructs claimants to send a letter within 45 days of the incident, with the date, time and location, a description of what happened, the nature of the injury, supporting documentation and contact details, to its Law Department. Forty-five days from a crash that put you in hospital is not a long time, and the safe course is to treat it as the deadline and send the letter early.
A claim against a private driver is not affected by any of that. The point is that you cannot know which track you are on until someone establishes who owned the vehicle and who was responsible for the roadway, and that determination is worth making in the first week rather than the eighteenth month.
What hiring a lawyer costs
The consultation is free and it commits you to nothing. If we take the case we work on a contingency fee, which means the fee is a percentage of the recovery and there is no fee unless we win. The percentage is written into the agreement before you sign it, and you should read it.
Case expenses — records, filing fees, experts, depositions — are advanced rather than billed to you as they arise. How expenses are handled at the end is set out in the same written agreement.
A person injured by someone else's negligence in Texas may bring a claim regardless of immigration status. It is not a question the other side gets to make the case about.
Common questions
What people ask after being hit on a bicycle in Austin.
A car hit me while I was riding my bike in Austin. Who pays?
The driver who caused the crash is responsible, and their liability insurance is the first source. Texas requires a driver to carry at least $30,000 per person and $60,000 per collision for bodily injury. If those limits do not cover the harm, or the driver had no insurance, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can be reached even though you were on a bicycle, because that coverage follows the person rather than the vehicle.
Does Texas have a three-foot passing law for bicycles?
No. The statewide rule is Section 545.053(a)(1), which requires a passing driver to pass to the left at a safe distance and not return right until safely clear. No measurement is attached. Some Texas cities have their own passing ordinances, which is why the specific city code has to be checked for the place the crash happened.
Do bicycles have the same rights as cars in Texas?
Yes. Section 551.101 gives a person operating a bicycle the rights and duties applicable to a driver operating a vehicle, except where the bicycle chapter changes a rule or where a rule cannot by its nature apply to a bicycle.
The driver says I should have been riding further to the right. Is that true?
Section 551.103 requires a rider moving slower than traffic to ride as near as practicable to the right curb, and then lists four exceptions: passing, preparing to turn left, avoiding a hazard including a parked or moving vehicle or a pedestrian, and riding in an outside lane under fourteen feet wide with no adjacent bike lane or otherwise too narrow to share safely. On most city streets at least one of those applies.
I was not wearing a helmet. Does that end my case?
Texas has no adult bicycle helmet law, so not wearing one violates nothing. It gets raised by insurers because it works on people who assume it is required. A helmet does not cause a collision and the driver's responsibility for causing one is a separate question.
Do I have to have lights on my bike in Texas?
At night, yes. Section 551.104 requires a white front lamp visible from at least 500 feet and, on the rear, either an approved red reflector visible from 50 to 300 feet in headlights or a red lamp visible from 500 feet. A brake capable of skidding a braked wheel is required at all times. During daylight there is no lighting requirement.
Is it legal to ride two abreast in Texas?
Yes. Section 551.103(c) permits it. On a laned roadway the two riders must stay within a single lane and may not impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic, and more than two abreast is allowed only on a roadway set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles.
Can I ride my bicycle on the sidewalk in Austin?
State law does not prohibit it. Local authorities have power under Section 551.106 to regulate the operation of bicycles, so a sidewalk restriction can exist as a city ordinance and has to be checked for the specific location. A sidewalk rule affects the fault analysis; it does not give a driver permission to hit someone.
The police did not give the driver a ticket. Does that mean I lose?
No. A citation and civil liability are separate questions, decided by different people under different standards. Close-pass crashes in particular often produce no citation, because Texas sets no numeric passing distance for an officer to say was crossed.
Is an e-bike treated the same as a regular bicycle?
Largely yes. Section 551.107 keeps electric bicycles out of the motor-vehicle subtitles, so they operate under the bicycle rules. The motor has to disengage when the rider stops pedalling or applies the brakes, and a Class 3 electric bicycle may only be operated by someone aged fifteen or older.
Someone opened a car door into me. Who is responsible?
The person who opened the door. Where that person was working at the time, their employer's commercial coverage generally responds as well. These claims turn on where the door was in its arc at impact and on the damage pattern along the bike and the door edge.
What if the driver drove off?
Leaving is itself an offense under Chapter 550, graded as a felony where the collision caused serious bodily injury or death. Practically, the case becomes an identification problem worked through camera canvassing and the crash report, and your own uninsured motorist coverage exists for exactly the situation where the driver is never found.
How long do I have to file?
Generally two years from the crash under Section 16.003. If a government vehicle or the condition of the road is involved, a much shorter notice deadline applies first: six months under the Tort Claims Act, and the City of Austin instructs claimants to send a claim letter within 45 days.
What is my bicycle case worth?
No honest page can tell you that, because it depends on facts specific to you: the injuries, the treatment, the income lost, the lasting effects, the share of responsibility assigned to each person, and the insurance that can actually be reached. Anyone quoting a range without knowing your medical record is guessing.
What does it cost to hire a lawyer?
Nothing up front. The consultation is free and we work on a contingency fee, so there is no fee unless we win your case. The percentage is stated in writing before you sign anything.
Does my immigration status matter?
No. A person injured by someone else's negligence in Texas may bring a claim regardless of immigration status.
Sources
Every statement of law above was read from the official Texas statute text on 2026-08-16, and every figure was pulled from the City of Austin crash record the same day. Links go to the Texas Legislature and to the publishing agency.
- Texas Transportation Code Chapter 551 — operation of bicycles, mopeds and certain other vehicles
§ 551.002 electric bicycles included; § 551.101 rights and duties; § 551.102 general operation; § 551.103 operation on a roadway and its four exceptions; § 551.104 brakes and night lighting; § 551.106 local regulation; § 551.107 electric bicycles; §§ 551.351-551.353 motor-assisted scooters.
- Texas Transportation Code § 545.053 — passing to the left at a safe distance
The statewide passing rule. No numeric distance appears anywhere in the chapter.
- Texas Transportation Code § 545.428 — collision with a pedestrian or other vulnerable road user in a crosswalk
Class A misdemeanor, state jail felony on serious bodily injury. Added 2021 by S.B. 1055, amended 2023 by H.B. 2190.
- Texas Transportation Code Chapter 550 — crash duties, information and aid
- Texas Transportation Code § 601.072 — minimum liability coverage amounts
- Texas Insurance Code § 1952.101 — uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
- Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 33 — proportionate responsibility
- Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.003 — two-year limitations period
- Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 101.101 — notice of a claim against a governmental unit
- City of Austin Law Department — how to file a claim against the City
The City instructs claimants to send a letter within 45 days of the incident. Read 2026-08-16.
- City of Austin — Austin Crash Report Data, crash-level records
Calendar year 2025 figures, pulled 2026-08-16, covering crashes inside the Austin full-purpose city limits.
- City of Austin — Vision Zero programme
Talk to a lawyer today
If a driver hit you on a bicycle, the video that shows what happened is being overwritten while you decide what to do. Call and we will tell you what to preserve and who to send it to. The consultation is free, it commits you to nothing, and you can have it in English or Spanish.
Call (512) 500-2810Medina & Medina Personal Injury Attorneys
6701 Burnet Rd #132, Austin, TX 78757
¿Prefiere leer esto en español? Abogado de accidentes de bicicleta en Austin.
This page explains Texas law as it stood on 2026-08-16. It is general information, it is not legal advice about your situation, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. City ordinances change and have to be checked for the specific place a crash happened. Past results do not guarantee future results. Every case is different.
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