Las Vegas Pedestrian Accident Lawyer for People Hit on Foot

What should I do right after a car hits me while I am walking in Las Vegas?

Get medical care first, and tell the paramedics every place that hurts. Adrenaline lies to you. People get up, wave off the ambulance, say they are fine, and wake up the next morning unable to turn their head or put weight on a hip. The medical record from that first hour becomes the foundation of the claim, and a gap or a "no complaints" note gets quoted back at you for months.

If you can do anything beyond getting care, these are the things that matter most.

• Call 911 and make sure LVMPD, the Nevada Highway Patrol or the Henderson or North Las Vegas police respond, so a report exists with the driver's name and insurance.
• Photograph the car, the plate, the street, the crosswalk paint, the signal and your injuries before anything gets moved.
• Get names and phone numbers from anyone who saw it, and look around for a camera on a store, a bus stop or a resort entrance.
• Keep your shoes, clothes and phone exactly as they are, even if they are torn or bloody.

Do not give the driver's insurance company a recorded statement. Do not sign a medical release that lets them dig through ten years of your history. They will call within days and they will sound kind. Tell them you will call back, and then call us.

Video is the other clock. Many businesses record over their footage in days or weeks, and a traffic camera image does not stay around forever either. We send preservation letters fast for exactly that reason, and the sooner someone is asking, the better the odds that the clip still exists.

Who is at fault when a driver hits a pedestrian in a Las Vegas crosswalk?

In most crosswalk crashes the driver is the one who owed the duty, because Nevada law generally requires drivers to yield to a pedestrian who is in a crosswalk on their side of the road or close enough to be in danger. That is the starting point, and it is a strong one. It is also where the insurance company starts building a different story.

The questions that decide these cases are small and concrete. Was the signal showing a walk symbol, a flashing hand or a solid hand when you stepped out? Was the driver turning, and if so, was the driver looking at the left-turn arrow and the oncoming traffic instead of the crosswalk? Was a second car stopped in the next lane, hiding you from a driver who came around it? Did the driver have a bright sun in the windshield and slow down anyway, or just guess?

Signal timing records, nearby video, the crash data in the driver's own vehicle and a reconstruction of sight lines can all answer those questions. A witness who says "she was in the crosswalk" is useful. A timestamped video that shows it is better. We have a separate page on crosswalk accidents in Las Vegas that goes deeper on the intersection cases.

Some crashes happen at crosswalks with no signal at all, the painted kind on a neighborhood street or in front of a school. Drivers tend to believe those are optional. They are not, and a driver who blew through one has a hard time explaining it to a jury.

What makes a Strip corridor or pedestrian bridge crash different?

The Strip puts more people on foot, more distracted drivers and more private property into one place than anywhere else in Nevada, and every one of those facts affects who can be held responsible. A pedestrian hit near Las Vegas Boulevard may have a claim against the driver and also against a resort, a valet operation, a tour company or a delivery company, depending on where the car came from.

A few things are specific to that stretch. Several of the busiest intersections have elevated pedestrian bridges. Insurers use that. If you crossed at street level near a bridge, expect them to say you chose the dangerous option. That argument can be answered, since drivers still owe a duty of care to people they can see, but it needs to be answered early with facts and not left to sit in the file.

Then there are the places where cars and foot traffic are forced to share space. Resort driveways. Porte-cocheres. Valet lanes. Parking garage entrances that cut across a sidewalk. Rideshare and taxi queues. These are often private property, which changes who investigates, who has the video and who might share the blame. Much of the Strip also sits in unincorporated Clark County and not inside the city of Las Vegas, so we check early which public agency is involved. Our page on the Strip corridor covers that ground in more detail.

Crowds and nightlife matter too. A jury in Clark County knows exactly what Friday night on Las Vegas Boulevard looks like. Drivers who choose to drive through it have to drive like they know it.

What if I was a tourist hit while walking and I live somewhere else?

You can still bring the claim, and you usually do not have to move to Las Vegas to do it. The crash happened here, so the case is generally brought here, in Clark County District Court. Most of the work happens by phone, email and video, and we coordinate with your doctors back home.

The practical problems are real, though. You have flown home with an injury and no local doctor. You may have a rental car, a hotel bill and a missed flight on top of the pain. Health insurance from another state may or may not follow you, and the driver's insurer will call a person who is five states away and hope the distance makes them easy to push.

Keep seeing doctors at home and follow their instructions exactly. Keep every receipt. Write down the name of the officer and the report number before you leave, and if you can, send us the photos from your phone while the memories are fresh. Out-of-town clients tend to apologize for being a hassle. You are not. Tim's office hears from people in this spot all the time, and the call goes the same way it would for someone who lives down the street.

What if the driver was picking up or dropping off a rideshare passenger?

Then a rideshare company's insurance may apply to your case. Rideshare drivers hurt pedestrians in pickup zones at hotels, in airport garages, outside clubs and along the curb at busy corners. They pull over fast, they look at a phone for the rider's location, and they open doors into foot traffic.

Whether the driver was logged into the app, had a passenger or was just on the way to a pickup changes which policy applies and how large it is. Nevada requires rideshare companies to carry coverage that steps up during a trip, and the amount depends on the phase of the ride. Those details are exactly what the rideshare company will not volunteer. We pull the trip data and the app logs and build from there.

If a rideshare driver hit you, read our page on being struck by a rideshare vehicle for the details. Taxis and limousines raise similar issues with their own rules.

What if the driver never stopped?

A hit and run still leaves you with options, and the first one is not to give up on finding the driver. Nevada law requires a driver involved in a crash that injures someone to stop and stay, and leaving is a crime. Police sometimes find these drivers through surveillance video, license plate readers, paint transfer, car parts left in the road and tips. A lot of that evidence disappears fast, which is why the first calls matter.

Even if the driver is never found, you may have coverage. Your own auto policy may include uninsured motorist coverage that can apply when the driver who hit you cannot be identified, and depending on the policy wording it may cover you as a pedestrian, not only when you are in your car. Nevada law and these policies set conditions, such as a prompt police report and notice to your insurer, so do not wait.

We handle these claims against your own insurer too, and your own insurer can be just as stubborn as someone else's. We cover the details on our page about pedestrian hit and run cases.

What about parking lots, garages and driveways?

These are the crashes people assume are not serious, and then a person is on the ground with a broken pelvis. Backing vehicles cannot see a toddler or someone who is walking behind them. Drivers in garages look for a space and not for a person. Delivery vans pull through loading zones at speed.

A parking lot crash can involve the driver, the property owner and sometimes a management company. Poor lighting, blind corners, missing crosswalk paint, misplaced signs and a layout that sends pedestrians through traffic can all be part of the story. Police may not write a full report on private property, so your own photos matter more here than in a street crash. Look for cameras at the store entrance, the garage gate and the ATM.

If you were hurt in a lot or a garage, see our page on parking lot pedestrian accidents.

What if the driver was drunk, high or on a phone?

Impairment and distraction change the case in two ways. They make fault easier to prove, and they can open the door to punitive damages, which Nevada allows in some cases where a driver acted with conscious disregard for the safety of others. Nevada also has a separate punitive damages rule for certain drunk driving cases.

Impaired and distracted drivers leave evidence behind. Blood test results, breath test results, arrest records, bar receipts, the phone itself, text and app records. We ask for them early, and we ask the right way, because phone records are not simply handed over.

A criminal case against the driver runs on a separate track from your claim. A plea or a conviction can help, and a dropped charge does not end your civil case. We have more on this in our drunk driving accident and distracted driving pages.

Which Nevada right-of-way rules matter most for pedestrians?

Nevada's pedestrian rules are in the traffic code, and they are more balanced than people assume. Here is the short version of what we look at, and every one of these has exceptions that depend on the facts.

• Drivers generally must yield to a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk, or in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, when the pedestrian is on the driver's half of the road or approaching closely from the other half. Where a traffic signal is working, the signal generally controls who goes first.
• A driver generally may not pass a vehicle that has stopped at a crosswalk, because the stopped car may be blocking the driver's view of a person crossing.
• Drivers owe a duty of due care to pedestrians even outside crosswalks, which means a driver cannot simply hit someone because the person was in the wrong place.
• Pedestrians crossing outside a crosswalk generally must yield to vehicles, and pedestrians are expected to follow walk and don't walk signals.
• Where a sidewalk is available, pedestrians are generally expected to use it, and where there is none, to walk facing traffic.

Those rules cut both ways. The second half of the list is what an insurance company will read to you on the phone. The first half is what we read back to them.

What will the insurance company say about my fault?

They will say you share the blame, because every percentage point they assign to you is money they do not pay. Under Nevada's comparative negligence rule, your recovery is generally reduced by your share of fault, and you can generally recover only if your share is not greater than the other side's. That makes fault percentages worth fighting over.

The arguments tend to repeat. Jaywalking is the first. Being outside a crosswalk is not the same as being the cause of a crash, and a driver who had time to see you and brake still has to do it. Distracted walking is the second. They will ask whether you were looking at your phone, wearing headphones or carrying drinks, and they may ask for your phone records. Dark clothing at night. Crossing against the signal. Walking while impaired. Stepping out from between parked cars.

Some of those arguments have a point, and we will tell you if they do. Most of them shrink when the driver's own conduct is laid next to them. A driver doing fifty in a thirty-five, or looking at a screen, or turning without checking the crosswalk, made a choice that mattered more than where your feet were.

Do not make the argument for them. Do not say "I didn't see it coming" or "it was probably my fault" to anyone. Say what you know, say you are hurt, and leave the rest to us. If you already gave a statement, call us anyway. It is a problem we deal with often and it is rarely the end of the case.

What injuries do pedestrians get in a crash?

Pedestrians take the whole force of the vehicle with nothing between them and the car. The injuries are often severe, and they tend to cluster in a few places. Legs and pelvis take the first hit, which means fractures that need surgery, rods and plates, and months of therapy. The body then goes onto the hood or the road, and the head and spine take what is left.

Traumatic brain injuries come from the head hitting the windshield or the pavement, and they can be quiet. Someone who seems fine at the scene can have memory problems, headaches, mood changes and trouble concentrating for weeks. Spine injuries range from herniated discs to permanent loss of movement. Road rash and burns on hot pavement in a Las Vegas summer can cause infections and scarring. Crush injuries sometimes end in amputation.

Each of these gets treated differently, and a brain injury or a spinal injury can change what a case is worth by a wide margin. For families who lost someone, see our wrongful death page.

Trauma patients from the Strip area are commonly taken to University Medical Center, and many others go to Sunrise and the hospitals in Summerlin and Henderson. Wherever you are treated, keep every record and every bill, including the ambulance.

What is a pedestrian accident case worth, and who pays?

There is no honest number without the facts. What we can tell you is what drives it. The severity and permanence of your injuries. The medical bills so far and the care you will need later. The wages you lost and the work you can no longer do. The pain and the changes to your life, which a jury gets to measure. How clearly the driver was at fault, and how much the insurance company can say you were. And how much insurance there is.

That last factor is where many people get an unpleasant surprise. Nevada's minimum liability limits are modest compared with what a serious injury can cost, and many drivers carry limits at or near the minimum. So the work is finding every source of recovery. The driver's policy is the first. After that, we look at the employer if the driver was working, the insurance a rideshare driver is required to carry, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, your own medical payments coverage, a business that owned the parking lot, or a government agency that built or maintained a dangerous crossing. We wrote about this at length in beyond the other driver's insurance.

A few years ago, a doctor driving his car hit two young girls in a crosswalk. They were badly hurt. He had a $500,000 policy, and the family had been told by a lawyer they went to first that the policy was all the money there was. It was not. Dean sued the doctor personally, put his team and investigators on the doctor's assets, and the case resolved for north of $2 million, paid out of the doctor's own pocket. That is the kind of work that most lawyers do not do, because it takes time and money upfront.

Our results list includes a person walking where the first offer was $250,000 and the case resolved for $2,200,000. Every case is different and past results do not predict yours. You can see more on our results page.

How long do I have to file, and what does it cost to call?

Most Nevada injury lawsuits must be filed within two years of the crash, and the clock is not generous to people who wait. If a city, the county, a school district, a transit agency or another public agency may be involved, tell us right away, because special claim procedures apply and we will handle them. A claim for a child may follow different timing, which is something we check at the start.

Calling us costs nothing. We take injury cases on a contingency basis, which means no fee until we win, and we explain the terms in plain words before you sign anything. You will not pay us out of your pocket while the case is open. We advance the costs of the case, including experts, which matters here because pedestrian cases often need reconstruction and medical specialists.

What is the first call like?

It is a conversation, not a script. Tim, our office manager, usually picks up. He asks how you are, who is at home with you, how you are getting around and what happened. The questions about the crash come after that, because someone who is hurt and scared does not need an interrogation first.

Then a lawyer reviews it. If we think you have a case, we say so. If we think you do not, or that you do not need a lawyer yet, we say that too. We read the report if you have it, we look at the photos and we start the preservation letters on the same day when time is short. Our page on what happens when you call walks through it, and you can reach us any time at (702) 500-7070.