Pedestrian Accidents
It matters, but it rarely ends the claim. Crossing outside a crosswalk means you must yield to vehicles — it does not give a driver permission to hit you. Every driver still owes a duty of due care to any pedestrian on the road, and Texas reduces rather than bars your recovery unless you are found more than half at fault.
In a marked or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, a driver must yield to a pedestrian on their half of the road, or close enough to it to be in danger. Where a signal controls the crossing, the pedestrian follows the signal.
Crossing elsewhere reverses the default: the pedestrian must yield. But Texas layers a separate duty on top of all of it. A driver must exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian, must sound the horn where necessary, and must take proper precautions around a child or an obviously confused or incapacitated person.
So the question is not simply who had the right of way. It is what a reasonable driver would have seen and done.
Expect the file to say you stepped out, were on your phone, wore dark clothing, or crossed mid-block. Some of that may even be true.
Under proportionate responsibility, that reduces recovery by your percentage and defeats it only above fifty-one percent. A pedestrian found thirty percent responsible still recovers seventy percent of the damages.
The evidence that moves that number is physical: street lighting, sight lines, vehicle speed from the crash data recorder, and where the impact actually happened relative to the crossing.
Pedestrian injuries are severe by nature — there is no protection at all — and $30,000 of minimum coverage does not survive a helicopter transfer and a surgery.
The coverage people overlook is their own. If you own a car, your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage and your personal injury protection can apply when you are struck on foot. So can a resident family member’s policy in many cases.
Where the driver fled, UM coverage is often the entire claim. Report a hit and run promptly, because most policies require it.
The recurring pattern is a driver turning across a crossing while looking for a gap in traffic rather than at the crosswalk, and a right turn on red with the driver’s head turned left.
Poor lighting, missing or faded markings and long stretches without a signalized crossing are contributing conditions, and where the responsible body is a city or the state, a claim against it carries formal notice deadlines far shorter than two years.
Get the crash report and a full medical assessment, including for head injury.
Photograph the crossing, the markings, the lighting and the sight lines — and do it at the same time of day the collision happened.
Get witness names. Pedestrian cases turn on accounts more than most, because there is rarely a second vehicle’s damage to read.
Tell your own insurer, even though you were on foot. That is what opens UM/UIM and PIP.
Usually yes. Crossing outside a crosswalk means you had to yield, but every driver still owes a duty of due care to any pedestrian on the road, and Texas reduces rather than bars recovery below 51% fault.
Report it immediately and check your own uninsured motorist coverage, which commonly covers a hit and run. Most policies require prompt reporting.
Often, yes. UM/UIM and personal injury protection can apply when you are struck as a pedestrian, and sometimes a resident family member’s policy does too.
A claim against a governmental unit may exist, but formal notice deadlines can be as short as ninety days, so that has to be identified immediately.
Two years against a private driver; far less if a governmental body is involved.
Automated intake assistant. It does not give legal advice and using it does not create an attorney–client relationship.