Hit-and-Run Options for an Uninsured California Driver

Attorney Answer

The honest answer is that your options are narrow. Because you had no insurance, California law lets you recover your economic losses — medical bills, lost income, vehicle damage — but bars you from recovering for pain and suffering. And with the driver gone, there may be no one to collect from at all.

The bar comes from Cal. Civ. Code § 3333.4(a), passed as Proposition 213. It prevents a person from recovering non-economic losses such as pain and suffering where the injured person owned a vehicle involved in the accident that was not insured, or was the operator of a vehicle involved in the accident who cannot establish financial responsibility. It does not touch economic damages: medical bills, lost wages and property damage remain recoverable. There is a narrow exception in subdivision (c) for a person who owned the uninsured vehicle involved and was injured by a driver convicted of driving under the influence, which a lawyer should check against your facts.

As for the driver who left: Cal. Veh. Code § 20001(a) requires the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to another person, or in death, to stop immediately at the scene. Violating it carries up to a year in county jail and a fine between $1,000 and $10,000, and where there is death or permanent serious injury, two to four years in state prison or 90 days to a year in county jail. That is a matter for the police. It does not pay you by itself — but if the driver is identified, there is a liability insurer to claim against, and California apportions fault rather than barring claims, so a share of blame would reduce recovery in proportion rather than end it (Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a); Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal. 3d 725 (1978)).

Coverage of your own is the usual answer when the driver cannot be found. Cal. Ins. Code § 11580.2 requires uninsured motorist coverage in every bodily injury liability policy issued or delivered in California unless it has been deleted by written agreement. That requires a policy. If you had none, the question worth asking is whether you were an insured under a household member’s policy — that is a matter of policy language, not statute.

One more thing, and it is why to get advice before you talk to anyone. Driving uninsured has consequences of its own. Under Cal. Veh. Code § 16070(a), the DMV must suspend driving privileges where a driver involved in a reportable accident fails to provide evidence of financial responsibility at the time of the accident. Cal. Veh. Code § 16000(a) also requires drivers to report certain crashes to the DMV on its own form within a short deadline. How you handle that reporting is exactly the kind of thing to run past a lawyer first.

What you can do

1. Get medical care and keep every record and bill — economic losses are the part of your claim that survives.

2. Preserve what already exists: photos you took, the police report number, contact information for anyone who stopped, and any nearby business’s security video, which is often overwritten within days.

3. Talk to a local attorney before you give a statement to the police, the DMV or any insurance company, including your own. If the uninsured-driving issue is live, that means a criminal-defense or traffic attorney. Do not write out a new account of the crash for anyone in the meantime.

4. With that advice, report the hit-and-run to the police if you have not, and get the report number.

5. Ask the lawyer about the DMV reporting form, about the license suspension under Cal. Veh. Code § 16070(a), and about whether you were covered as an insured on anyone else’s policy. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to, or the death of, an individual caused by another’s wrongful act or neglect; vehicle-damage claims run on the three-year period in Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1). Reporting duties to the DMV run on far shorter deadlines than either. When each clock started depends on your facts. Have a local attorney check the dates against your own file rather than relying on a general rule.