Austin and central Texas · Travis · Williamson · Hays · Bastrop
Hit by a car while walking in Austin
A pedestrian struck by a vehicle has a claim even where they crossed somewhere they should not have. Texas puts a duty of due care on the driver that survives the pedestrian's own mistake, and it says so in the same chapter the insurer will quote at you. Here is what the law actually requires. Se habla español.
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The short answer
A person on foot who is struck by a vehicle has an ordinary motor vehicle claim against the driver, backed by the driver's liability insurance and, where that is not enough, by uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that follows the injured person rather than a car. The two questions that decide these cases are who had the right of way at that spot, and what percentage of responsibility each person carries.
You do not lose the claim by crossing in the wrong place
Section 552.008 begins with the words "Notwithstanding another provision of this chapter" and then requires the operator of a vehicle to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian on a roadway, to sound the horn when necessary, and to exercise proper precaution on observing a child or an obviously confused or incapacitated person. The duty is not conditional on the pedestrian having followed the rules.
People ask this as "I was jaywalking, do I still have a case" or "I crossed in the middle of the block".
Right of way is decided by the specific spot, not by a general rule
A marked crosswalk, an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, a signalised crossing, a mid-block point between two signals, a driveway apron and a parking aisle each have their own rule. The answer changes across thirty feet of pavement, and it is the first thing worth establishing.
Fault is a percentage, and 51 percent is the cliff
Texas assigns each person a share of responsibility. A recovery is reduced by the injured person's share and is barred once that share passes 50 percent. Everything the insurer says about dark clothing, a phone, a signal or where you stepped off the curb is aimed at moving that number.
People ask this as "it was partly my fault, is it worth calling".
You can often claim on your own policy even with no car involved on your side
Uninsured and underinsured motorist 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, which is how a pedestrian with a household auto policy reaches coverage after being struck by a driver with no insurance or a hit-and-run driver who is never identified.
The most perishable evidence in a pedestrian case is video. Austin arterials are lined with businesses whose systems overwrite in days, and a strike that is disputed on paper is usually obvious on twelve seconds of footage.
What the driver owed you, in the words of the statute
Chapter 552 puts duties on both people. The duties on the driver are the ones that get left out of the version an adjuster tells you.
Due care, regardless of what the pedestrian did
Section 552.008 imposes three obligations notwithstanding anything else in the chapter: exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian on a roadway, give warning by sounding the horn when necessary, and exercise proper precaution on observing a child or an obviously confused or incapacitated person on a roadway. A driver who sees a person in the road and does nothing has breached a written duty.
Stop and yield at a "Walk" signal
Section 552.002(b) provides that a pedestrian facing a "Walk" signal may proceed across the roadway in the direction of the signal, and that the operator of a vehicle shall stop and yield the right of way to them. The turning driver with a green light does not have priority over a person crossing on a Walk.
No passing a vehicle that has stopped for a pedestrian
Section 552.003(c) prohibits the operator of a vehicle approaching from the rear of a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk to permit a pedestrian to cross from passing the stopped vehicle. This is the multiple-threat crash: the first driver stops, the second pulls around them, and the pedestrian is struck stepping out from behind a stopped car.
People describe this as "one car stopped for me and another came around it".
Yield when emerging from a driveway or alley
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 extending across it. The driver watching left for a gap in traffic while rolling forward across a sidewalk is violating this section.
Extra precaution for people who are blind or disabled
Section 552.010 requires the driver of a vehicle approaching an intersection or crosswalk where a pedestrian guided by an assistance animal or carrying a white cane is crossing to take necessary precautions, including bringing the vehicle to a full stop where that is the only way to avoid danger. Section 552.003(d) attaches an enhanced penalty where a crosswalk violation causes serious bodily injury or death to a visually impaired or disabled person.
Green does not mean go through a person
Section 552.001(b) allows a pedestrian facing a green signal to proceed across a roadway within a marked or unmarked crosswalk unless the sole green signal is a turn arrow. A driver with the same green who turns across that crossing is turning into someone with the right of way.
Crosswalk right of way, including the crosswalk with no paint
Section 552.003(a) requires the operator of a vehicle to stop and yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing a roadway in a crosswalk where no traffic control signal is in place or in operation and the pedestrian is either on the half of the roadway the vehicle is travelling on, or approaching so closely from the opposite half as to be in danger.
The word that carries the most weight is crosswalk, because it does not only mean the painted stripes. An unmarked crosswalk exists at an intersection where the sidewalk lines cross the roadway, and Texas law treats a pedestrian in one the same as a pedestrian in a marked one. A great many people are told they were "not in a crosswalk" when they were standing in an unmarked one at a corner.
The limit on the pedestrian is in Section 552.003(b): a pedestrian may not suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and proceed into a crosswalk into the path of a vehicle so close that it is impossible for the driver to stop and yield. That is a rule about a sudden step in front of a vehicle already too close to stop. It is not a rule that a driver who had time and space is excused.
Section 552.001 governs where a signal is present. A pedestrian facing a green may cross within a marked or unmarked crosswalk unless the only green shown is a turn arrow, and may not enter the roadway facing a steady red alone or a steady yellow. Section 552.002 governs where a pedestrian signal is present: a Walk permits crossing and obliges drivers to stop and yield, a Don't Walk or Wait prohibits starting, and someone already part-way across when the signal changes is to continue to a sidewalk or safety island rather than stop in the road.
Chapter 552 was amended by Senate Bill 2039 in the 2025 session, effective September 1, 2025, which brought the "sidewalk user" into these provisions and added Sections 552.0035 and 552.0036 addressing sidewalk-user right of way at crosswalks and at stop signs. That is recent law, and pages written before it describe an older chapter.
If you were crossing outside a crosswalk
Texas does not use the word jaywalking in the Transportation Code. What it has is Section 552.005: a pedestrian crossing a roadway at a place other than a marked crosswalk, or other than an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, or at a place where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead crossing is provided, shall yield the right of way to a vehicle on the highway. Between adjacent intersections where signals are operating, a pedestrian may cross only in a marked crosswalk. Diagonal crossing is permitted only where a traffic control device authorises it.
Failing to yield in that situation is a duty the pedestrian owed. It is a factor in apportioning responsibility, and it will be argued hard. It is not a rule that the driver owed nothing, because Section 552.008 says the opposite in terms, and because the driver's own conduct is judged on its own facts: speed, attention, headlights, phone use, impairment, and whether the person was visible for four seconds or for half of one.
The practical outcome in these cases is usually a split. Chapter 33 assigns each person a percentage; the recovery is reduced by the injured person's share and is barred only once that share exceeds 50 percent. A case where a pedestrian crossed mid-block and a speeding driver never braked is not a case with no value, and the assumption that it is stops a lot of people from ever making the call.
Local ordinances add a layer. Section 552.009 allows a local authority to require pedestrians to comply strictly with traffic control signals and to prohibit crossing outside a crosswalk in a business district or on a designated highway. What applies has to be checked for the specific city and the specific street.
The single sentence worth remembering: the driver's duty of due care in Section 552.008 applies notwithstanding another provision of the chapter, which includes the provision the insurer is about to quote at you.
Sidewalks, shoulders and the walk home with no sidewalk at all
A large share of Austin-area pedestrian strikes happen to people who were not crossing anything. Chapter 552 addresses that situation directly.
Use the sidewalk where there is one
Section 552.006(a) provides that a pedestrian may not walk along and on a roadway where an adjacent sidewalk is provided and is accessible. The word accessible does work here: a sidewalk blocked by construction, parked vehicles, overgrowth or standing water is not accessible, and that is a fact question about that block on that day.
Where there is no sidewalk, walk facing traffic
Section 552.006(b) requires a pedestrian walking along a highway with no sidewalk to walk on the left side of the roadway or the shoulder, facing oncoming traffic, unless that side is obstructed or unsafe. This provision was amended in 2021 and again in 2023, and the obstructed-or-unsafe qualifier matters on Austin-area roads where the left shoulder is a ditch.
People ask this as "which side of the road am I supposed to walk on".
The driveway crossing is the driver's to yield
Section 552.006(c) requires a driver emerging from or entering an alley, building, private road or driveway to stop and yield to a pedestrian approaching on a sidewalk crossing it. Gas stations, strip-centre exits and apartment gates are where this one gets broken.
Parking lots and private property
A parking lot is generally not a highway, so several Chapter 552 provisions do not reach it. The claim there rests on ordinary negligence — a driver reversing without looking owes reasonable care wherever they are — and sometimes on a premises claim against the property owner for the design, the lighting or the sight lines. The City of Austin crash record classifies none of the year's pedestrian crashes as occurring on a private drive, so parking-lot strikes have to be reconstructed from the scene rather than counted from the data.
People ask this as "I got hit in a parking lot, is that different".
Keep to the right on a sidewalk
Section 552.004 requires a pedestrian to keep to the right half of a crosswalk where practicable. It is a minor rule that occasionally appears in an insurer's letter as though it decided something.
When hitting a pedestrian is a criminal offense
Section 545.428 makes it an 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 offense is a Class A misdemeanor and rises to a state jail felony where the person struck suffered serious bodily injury.
The section was added in 2021 by Senate Bill 1055 and amended in 2023 by House Bill 2190. It carries an affirmative defense: that at the time of the offense the person struck was violating a provision relating to walking, movement or operation in a crosswalk or on a roadway.
Section 552.003(d) creates a separate enhanced penalty where a crosswalk-yield violation causes serious bodily injury or death to a visually impaired or disabled person — a fine and thirty hours of community service with an organisation serving visually impaired or disabled people, part of which must be sensitivity training.
A criminal charge and a civil claim are different proceedings with different standards and different decision-makers. A charge is useful evidence and a source of investigation, and its absence proves nothing about the civil claim.
If the driver did not stop
A meaningful share of pedestrian strikes are hit and run, and people assume that ends the matter. It does not.
What the driver was required to do
Section 550.021 requires the operator of a vehicle in a collision that results or is reasonably likely to result in injury or death to stop immediately at the scene or as close as possible, return immediately if they did not stop, determine whether anyone needs aid, and remain until they have complied with Section 550.023. Failing to do so is an offense, and it is a second-degree felony where the collision resulted in a person's death.
What they were required to hand over
Section 550.023 requires them to give their name and address, the registration number of the vehicle, and the name of their liability insurer to any person injured, to show a driver's licence if asked, and to provide reasonable assistance to anyone injured, including arranging transport for medical treatment where it is apparent that treatment is needed.
Your own coverage exists for exactly this
Uninsured motorist coverage responds where the driver is never identified. This is the reason a pedestrian with no car of their own should still check every auto policy in the household, and check it early, because these policies carry their own notice and cooperation requirements.
Identification is a canvassing problem
Debris and vehicle parts left at the scene identify a make and often a model year. Businesses and residences along the route have cameras. Toll gantries, transit vehicles and other drivers' dash systems capture traffic. All of it is time-limited, which is why the first week is worth more than the next six months.
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 pedestrian was one of the units in 283 reported crashes in 2025. 255 people were injured, 54 of the people on foot suffered a suspected serious injury, and 31 people died in those crashes, 30 of them the pedestrian.
Set that against the city as a whole. Austin recorded 99 road deaths in 2025. 30 of them were people on foot — the second largest group after the 45 who were inside vehicles, and more than motorcyclists and cyclists combined. Roughly two percent of the city's crashes accounted for close to a third of the people killed.
The striking vehicle was a passenger car in 150 of them and an SUV, van or pickup in 100. 198 happened off the state highway system and 85 on it.
Speed shapes the outcome. The posted limit where these crashes happened was 35 mph in 83 of them, 30 in 42, 45 in 42 and 40 in 27. And darkness dominates: 67 of the year's pedestrian crashes happened between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., but 14 of the 31 deaths did. Under a quarter of the crashes carried nearly half the fatalities.
| Year | Pedestrians killed | Pedestrians seriously injured |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 41 | 68 |
| 2022 | 47 | 86 |
| 2023 | 38 | 74 |
| 2024 | 39 | 59 |
| 2025 | 30 | 54 |
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.
What this data cannot do is rank Austin streets by pedestrian danger. Street names in the record fragment across several spellings for the same road, and no honest ranking survives that. It also stops at the city boundary, so it says nothing about Round Rock, Georgetown, Kyle or San Marcos.
Where people get hit in the Austin area
No crash count is attached to any location named here, for the reason above. This is the physical geography, which is what actually explains a crash.
The wide arterial with distant crossings
North Lamar, Airport Boulevard, East Riverside, Burnet Road, William Cannon, Slaughter Lane, Pleasant Valley, Manchaca and Rundberg. Multiple lanes, 35 to 45 mph posted, bus stops and apartment entrances on both sides, and half a mile or more between signalised crossings. A person who needs to reach a stop on the other side is being asked to walk a long way to cross legally.
The interstate frontage roads
The I-35 service roads through central and north Austin, and the Ben White and US-183 frontage systems. High speeds, turning movement across the walking line at every ramp, and crossings that are long and poorly lit.
Downtown and the entertainment districts
Sixth Street, Rainey Street, Red River, Congress Avenue and the Second Street district. Dense foot traffic late at night, rideshare vehicles stopping in travel lanes, and people stepping out from between stopped cars. This is where the multiple-threat crash in Section 552.003(c) happens.
The campus edge
Guadalupe along the University of Texas, Dean Keeton, Speedway, San Jacinto and the West Campus grid. Very high pedestrian volume mixed with buses, delivery vehicles, bicycles and scooters.
Transit stops and school zones
A bus stop sited on the far side of a wide road generates crossings whether or not there is a crosswalk. School zones concentrate children at fixed times, and Section 552.008 specifically requires proper precaution on observing a child on a roadway.
Parking lots and drive-through lanes
Grocery, big-box and apartment lots, garage exits and gas station aprons. Reversing vehicles, blind pillars and drivers watching for a gap in the street rather than the sidewalk in front of them.
The suburbs and the county roads
Round Rock, Georgetown, Pflugerville, Cedar Park, Leander, Hutto, Kyle, Buda, San Marcos, Manor, Taylor, Bastrop, Lakeway, Bee Cave and Dripping Springs. Roads built for cars with no sidewalk and no shoulder, where Section 552.006(b) puts a walker on the left facing traffic and the left side is frequently a ditch. Cases from here are filed in Williamson, Hays, Bastrop or Travis County.
Which insurance pays when you have no car in the crash
People assume that having no vehicle involved on their side means having no coverage. Usually several layers apply.
The driver's liability coverage
First source. Texas requires a minimum of $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 statutory floors, and a pedestrian struck at 35 mph frequently exceeds them in the first week of hospital care.
Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
This is the layer that saves pedestrian cases. It follows the insured person, not a vehicle, so a person on foot can claim on their own auto policy or one in their household after being struck by an uninsured driver, an underinsured driver, or a driver who left and was never identified.
People ask this as "I don't even own a car, what can I do".
Personal injury protection
PIP is included in a Texas auto policy unless it was rejected in writing. It pays medical expenses and a portion of lost earnings without regard to fault, and it pays early, which matters because a pedestrian's treatment starts long before liability is agreed.
A commercial policy behind a work vehicle
Where the driver was working — delivery, service, rideshare, construction — an employer's commercial policy generally sits behind them with much higher limits. Establishing employment and course of employment is often the highest-value fact in the case.
Health coverage and the reimbursement claim
Use it for treatment. The plan will usually assert a right to be repaid out of any recovery, and negotiating that claim is part of the case rather than a surprise at the end.
A premises claim, where the property caused it
Lighting, sight lines, a missing barrier, an unmarked hazard or a lot laid out so pedestrians and vehicles cross blind. Where the property contributed, the owner or occupier can be a defendant alongside the driver.
Children, older adults and people with disabilities
Section 552.008(3) requires a driver to exercise proper precaution on observing a child or an obviously confused or incapacitated person on a roadway. That is a heightened standard written into the statute, and it applies at the moment the driver sees the person, not at the moment they realise there is a risk.
The comparative-fault arguments that get run against adults land differently on a child. Texas law does not treat a young child as capable of the same judgement as an adult, and an insurer that assigns a large share of responsibility to a seven-year-old for stepping into a street is making an argument that has to be tested rather than accepted.
Older adults are struck disproportionately at crossings timed for a walking speed they cannot make, and are injured far more severely by the same impact. The signal timing at the intersection is a documentable fact and it is worth documenting.
For a person who is blind or has a mobility disability, Section 552.010 requires a driver approaching an intersection or crosswalk where a pedestrian guided by an assistance animal or carrying a white cane is crossing to take necessary precautions, and to come to a full stop where that is the only way to avoid danger.
A claim on behalf of an injured child has its own procedural requirements in Texas, including how a settlement is approved and how funds are held. Those are handled as part of the case and should be raised early rather than at the end.
What to do after a pedestrian is struck
Some of this is only possible in the first hour. Some of it is only possible in the first week. Where the injured person cannot do it, a family member can.
Call 911 and make sure a report is written
A written crash report identifies the driver, the vehicle, the insurer and the officer's initial view of the scene. It is the document every insurer starts from.
Photograph where everyone and everything ended up
The final rest position of the vehicle, the point of impact, glass and debris, skid or scuff marks, the shoes or belongings left in the roadway. Position tells a reconstruction expert speed and direction, and it is gone within the hour.
Photograph the crossing itself
Marked lines or their absence, the corner geometry that creates an unmarked crosswalk, the signal and its timing, the lighting, parked vehicles blocking sight lines, construction. Section 552.003 turns on exactly these facts.
Note the light and the lighting
Time of day, whether streetlights were working, whether the sun was low in the driver's eyes. Nearly half of Austin's fatal pedestrian crashes happen in a six-hour night window, and lighting is argued in every one of them.
Canvass for cameras the same day
Businesses, apartment entrances, doorbells, buses, parked vehicles with recording systems. Most overwrite in days. Ask in writing and ask immediately.
Get witness contact details before people leave
A pedestrian strike draws a crowd that disperses in minutes. One phone number is worth more than a description of the crowd.
Accept transport and be examined
Pedestrian injuries are frequently internal and frequently delayed. Declining transport creates both a medical risk and a gap in the record that the insurer will use.
Give no recorded statement to the driver's insurer
They will call within days. There is no obligation to give a recorded statement, and the questions about where you stepped off the curb are being asked for a reason.
The injuries, and why the record drives the claim
A pedestrian has nothing between them and the vehicle. The pattern is well known: a lower-leg fracture where the bumper strikes, a pelvic or hip fracture, a torso injury against the hood edge, and a head injury from the hood, the windscreen or the road on landing. The height of the striking vehicle changes the pattern, which is why the SUV and pickup share of these crashes matters clinically and not only statistically.
Traumatic brain injury is the injury most often under-recorded early. A person who was conscious and talking at the scene can still have a significant injury, and the symptoms that matter — headache, light and noise sensitivity, memory and word-finding trouble, irritability, sleep disruption, inability to hold attention through a working day — often present days later and are described to family before any doctor.
Write it down as it happens. A contemporaneous note of what someone could not do this week is better evidence than a recollection given eleven months later, and it is the kind of proof that survives cross-examination.
Lost income and lost capacity need their own documentation: shifts missed, work reassigned, the physical requirements of the actual job, and tasks that now take longer or hurt.
This page explains how Texas law and the medical record work. It offers no opinion on what any particular injury is worth, because that depends on facts specific to one person.
Deadlines, including the short one people miss
The general rule is two years. Section 16.003 requires suit for personal injury to be brought not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues, and a claim for injury resulting in death runs two years from the date of death.
Where the vehicle belonged to a government body, or the claim concerns the roadway, the signal, the crossing or a work zone, the claim runs against a governmental unit under the Texas Tort Claims Act. That Act entitles the governmental unit to notice of the claim not later than six months after the incident, and Section 101.101(b) 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, setting out the date, time and location, what happened, the nature of the injury, supporting documentation and contact details, to its Law Department. Treat 45 days as the working deadline.
A claim on behalf of a minor is subject to different timing rules, and a wrongful death or survival claim has its own structure. None of that is a reason to wait, because the evidence that decides these cases has a shelf life measured in days.
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, so 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.
Case expenses — records, filing fees, reconstruction, experts, depositions — are advanced rather than billed to you as they come up, and how they 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.
Common questions
What people ask after being hit by a vehicle while walking in Austin.
A car hit me while I was walking in Austin. What do I do first?
Get medical attention and make sure a police report is written. Then, before anything is cleaned up, photograph the vehicle position, the point of impact, the crossing and the lighting, and get names and numbers from witnesses. Camera footage from nearby businesses is usually overwritten within days, so it has to be requested immediately.
I was jaywalking. Do I still have a case?
Often yes. Section 552.005 required you to yield when crossing outside a crosswalk, and that will be weighed against you. But Section 552.008 opens with "Notwithstanding another provision of this chapter" and then requires the driver to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian, to sound the horn when necessary, and to take proper precaution on seeing a child or a confused or incapacitated person. Texas splits responsibility by percentage and only bars recovery once your share passes 50 percent.
Does a driver have to stop for me in a crosswalk in Texas?
Yes. Where no signal is in place or operating, Section 552.003(a) requires a driver to stop and yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk who is on the driver's half of the road or approaching so closely from the other half as to be in danger. Where a pedestrian signal shows Walk, Section 552.002(b) requires drivers to stop and yield.
There were no painted lines. Was I still in a crosswalk?
Possibly. An unmarked crosswalk exists at an intersection where the sidewalk line continues across the roadway, and Texas treats a pedestrian in one the same as a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk. Many people are wrongly told they were outside a crosswalk when they were in an unmarked one at a corner.
One car stopped for me and another one came around it and hit me.
Section 552.003(c) prohibits exactly that. A driver approaching from behind a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross may not pass the stopped vehicle. This is one of the clearest liability patterns in pedestrian cases.
Which side of the road should I walk on where there is no sidewalk?
The left side of the roadway or shoulder, facing oncoming traffic, unless that side is obstructed or unsafe. That is Section 552.006(b). Where a sidewalk is provided and accessible, Section 552.006(a) says to use it, and whether a blocked or flooded sidewalk was accessible is a question of fact.
I was hit in a parking lot. Is that treated differently?
Somewhat. A parking lot is generally not a highway, so several Chapter 552 provisions do not apply there. The claim rests on ordinary negligence — a driver reversing or turning still owes reasonable care — and sometimes on a premises claim about lighting, layout or sight lines. The Austin crash record does not classify these separately, so the scene has to be documented rather than looked up.
The driver drove off and was never found. Is there anything I can do?
Yes. Uninsured motorist coverage is designed for this and follows the insured person, so an auto policy in your household can respond even though you were on foot and even though the driver is never identified. Separately, leaving the scene is an offense under Chapter 550, and identification is often possible through debris, vehicle parts and camera canvassing done quickly.
I do not own a car. Does that mean no insurance covers me?
Not necessarily. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage follows the person rather than the vehicle, so a policy held by a resident relative may respond. Every auto policy in the household is worth checking, and worth checking early, because those policies carry their own notice requirements.
Who is responsible if I was hit while crossing to a bus stop?
It depends on the crossing and the driver's conduct rather than on the destination. If the strike involved a transit vehicle or a government-owned vehicle, a much shorter claim-notice deadline applies, so that has to be identified in the first days rather than later.
My child was hit walking to school. Is it handled the same way?
The claim structure is the same, but two things change. Section 552.008(3) requires a driver to exercise proper precaution on observing a child on a roadway, which is a heightened standard. And Texas law does not treat a young child as capable of adult judgement, so an insurer assigning a large share of fault to a small child is making an argument that has to be tested. Settlements for minors also have their own approval requirements.
The police report says I was at fault. Is that the end of it?
No. A crash report records an officer's initial view, often formed in minutes from the account of the only person still standing. It is not a legal finding, it does not decide the civil claim, and it is frequently revised once video and physical evidence are produced.
How long do I have to bring a claim?
Generally two years from the date of the crash under Section 16.003. If a government vehicle, a signal, a crossing or a work zone 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 a pedestrian accident case worth?
No page can answer that, because it depends on facts specific to you: the injuries and treatment, the income and capacity lost, the lasting effects, the share of responsibility assigned to each person, and the insurance that can actually be reached. Anyone quoting a figure without the 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. Chapter 552 was amended by S.B. 2039, 89th Legislature, effective September 1, 2025.
- Texas Transportation Code Chapter 552 — pedestrians
§ 552.001 traffic control signals; § 552.002 pedestrian signals and the duty to stop and yield on Walk; § 552.003 crosswalk right of way and the no-passing rule; §§ 552.0035-552.0036 sidewalk users; § 552.004 keep to the right; § 552.005 crossing elsewhere; § 552.006 sidewalks, shoulders and driveways; § 552.008 drivers to exercise due care; § 552.009 local ordinances; § 552.010 blind pedestrians.
- 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 §§ 550.021 and 550.023 — duty to stop, give information and render 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
- City of Austin — Vision Zero crash viewer
Talk to a lawyer today
If a vehicle hit you while you were walking, the footage that shows what happened is being overwritten right now, and the insurer is already building the argument that you stepped out. Call and we will tell you what to preserve and what to do next. 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 atropellos 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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