Finding a Hit-and-Run Driver Years After the Crash

Attorney Answer

Probably not — but do not assume that on your own, and do not wait. Six years is well past the deadline California sets for an injury claim from a crash, and locating the driver now does not by itself restart the clock.

The governing statute is Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1: "Within two years: An action for assault, battery, or injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another." If the crash caused injuries, that two-year period is what you are measured against. A claim for damage to the car alone runs longer — Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1) gives three years for injuring goods or chattels — but three years is also long past.

California law does contain rules that pause these periods in specific situations. The one this page can name is Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 352(a), which stops the clock while a person entitled to bring the action was under the age of majority or lacked the legal capacity to make decisions; the time of that disability is not counted. Whether any other rule could reach your situation — including an argument built on the driver's identity being unknown until last week — is not something this page can resolve. That is a question to put to a lawyer immediately rather than one to guess at.

Two things are worth keeping separate. Whether a prosecutor can still bring a criminal hit-and-run case is a different question, on different deadlines, decided by the district attorney and not by you. The driver's duty to stop — Cal. Veh. Code § 20001(a) where someone is injured or killed, Cal. Veh. Code § 20002(a) where only property is damaged — is that criminal side. Your civil claim would rest instead on ordinary negligence under Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a), which makes a person responsible for an injury occasioned to another by want of ordinary care.

What you can do

1. Gather what you still have before anything else — the police report number, photographs, medical records, repair bills and any insurance correspondence from the time.

2. Ask a California personal-injury attorney to review the dates this week. The only question that matters now is whether an exception reaches your facts, and that is a legal judgment rather than a form to fill in.

3. Tell that lawyer at once if you were under 18 at the time of the crash, or lacked legal capacity then. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 352(a) can change the analysis entirely.

4. If you made a claim on your own policy back then, ask your insurer for its file and whether it ever pursued the driver.

5. You can give the driver's identity to the law-enforcement agency that took the original report. That is separate from any civil claim and costs you nothing.

6. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with someone who handles these cases in your area is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Injury claims run on Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1's two years and vehicle-damage claims on § 338(c)(1)'s three. Which period applies, when it started, and whether anything paused it depend on facts this page does not have. Have a California attorney review your dates now — this page does not calculate a deadline for you, and on a crash this old the review itself is the urgent part.