Chain Collision at an Intersection With Dead Signals

Q: If a car is pushed into mine, is that driver's insurance responsible?

Not necessarily. Texas liability follows fault. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.003 the trier of fact assigns each party a percentage of responsibility, and § 33.013(a) makes a defendant liable only for its own percentage unless that defendant is more than 50 percent responsible or acted in concert in the intentional conduct the statute lists. A driver assigned no percentage carries no liability, and that driver's liability carrier owes nothing.

Q: Does a liability-only Texas policy cover the policyholder's own injuries?

Liability coverage does not pay for the policyholder's own vehicle, but two other coverages may still be there. Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.101(b) requires an insurer to provide uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage with a Texas auto liability policy, and § 1952.101(c) removes that requirement only where a named insured rejected it in writing. Personal injury protection follows the same structure under § 1952.152, and § 1952.155(a) makes those benefits payable without regard to fault or collateral source. Asking the insurer for any written rejection is the way to find out.

Question

I was proceeding through a four-way stop because the power was out and the traffic lights weren't working. It was icy and snowy, so there was no power. I proceeded to a four-way stop and a Honda Accord was to my left. As we waited for all the other vehicles to clear the intersection, we nodded at each other, because we were commenting about each other's vehicles, and agreed to proceed into the intersection. As we were proceeding, a Jeep Grand Cherokee coming from our left did not yield at the four-way stop and plowed into the Honda Accord to my left. I was in the center lane going southbound, and the Honda was to my left in the left lane, proceeding into the intersection right next to me. The Jeep Grand Cherokee T-boned the Honda Accord, flipping it up in the air, and the left tires on the Accord made contact with the side of my Chevy Avalanche, indenting above the fender wells of both my front and rear fenders. My Avalanche spun through the intersection and hit an Audi 008 and crushed my right front quarter panel. The impact crushed the left side of my cab, so that I couldn't open my driver's door, and I blew out all my glass. I broke all of my upper teeth on my right side, and my lower back is now in pain constantly and I am leaning forward to relieve the pain in my lower spine. Elephant Car Insurance insured the Honda that hit me on the left side, but they told me that they weren't responsible because they didn't cause the accident, and the gentleman in the Jeep Grand Cherokee who ran the intersection was responsible, and I was to seek financial responsibility from him. Well, that gentleman was not uninsured, and I've yet to be able to collect any money from him. So my vehicle got totaled and I got injured, and everyone's telling me that my insurance had to take care of that, and all I had was liability insurance with Geico, so I'm stuck.

A. Jason Velez · Accepted Answer

Two things in your account point in different directions: the driver who ran the intersection is the one responsible for the chain of impacts, and the coverage you can actually reach may sit inside your own policy, not his. And because this crash is not recent, the deadline question has to be answered before anything else. Start with the rule the Jeep driver broke. Tex. Transp. Code § 545.151(a)(1) requires a driver approaching an intersection to stop, yield, and grant immediate use of the intersection in obedience to an official traffic-control device, and it applies the same duty where a traffic-control signal is present but does not display an indication in any of the signal heads. That is a dead signal in a power outage. Under § 545.151(a)(2), the driver may proceed only after stopping and only when the intersection can be safely entered without interference or collision. On what you describe, the Jeep driver did neither. The Honda's insurer is right about one thing, for the wrong reason. Liability in Texas follows fault. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.003 the trier of fact assigns each party a percentage of responsibility, and § 33.013(a) makes each defendant liable only for its own percentage — there is no automatic joint liability. If the Honda driver was struck and thrown into you, that driver may carry no percentage at all, and a liability carrier owes nothing for a driver who is not at fault. Section 33.001 also bars a claimant whose own share is greater than 50 percent, and § 33.012(a) reduces damages by whatever share is assigned to the claimant. Now the part everyone seems to have gotten wrong. A liability-only auto policy has no collision coverage for your own vehicle. But Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.101(b) prohibits an insurer from issuing an auto liability policy in Texas without providing uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, and § 1952.101(c) provides that "The coverage required by this subchapter does not apply if any insured named in the insurance policy rejects the coverage in writing." Personal injury protection is built the same way: § 1952.152 requires it unless rejected in writing, and § 1952.155(a) makes those benefits payable without regard to fault and without regard to any collateral source. If no one ever signed a written rejection, those coverages should be on your policy even though it was a minimum-limits policy — and PIP would reach your dental and back treatment regardless of who caused this. Two more rules that fit your facts. Tex. Transp. Code § 601.051 requires financial responsibility for every vehicle operated in Texas, and § 601.191 makes driving without it an offense carrying a fine of $175 to $350 for a first offense and $350 to $1,000 for a repeat. And under Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.155(c), a PIP carrier that pays benefits has a subrogation claim against a driver for whom financial responsibility was not established. What you can do 1. Ask your insurer in writing for the complete policy for that date, the declarations page, and any signed written rejection of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage or personal injury protection. 2. Open a claim under your own uninsured/underinsured motorist and PIP coverage, and say in the claim that you are asking about both. 3. Gather the dental and medical records for your teeth and your back, and the total-loss paperwork on your truck. 4. Request the officer's crash report from the investigating agency. 5. Talk to a Texas attorney this week about the filing deadline. 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. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) sets two years from the day the cause of action accrues for personal injury and for injury to property. On a crash of this age that period may already have run, and whether it has — and what, if anything, changes it — depends on facts only a Texas attorney can evaluate. Do not compute it yourself, and do not assume it is hopeless before someone looks.

Chain Collision at an Intersection With Dead Signals

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