If you are hit by a car while walking in Utah, you have two separate paths to compensation. First, Personal Injury Protection benefits from the insurance policy on the vehicle that struck you pay out immediately, regardless of who caused the collision. Second, once your injuries cross a statutory threshold, you can sue the driver for the full range of damages, including pain and suffering. An auto pedestrian accident in Utah sits inside a no-fault insurance system, a modified comparative fault rule, and strict driver obligations at the scene, and each of those pieces shapes what you can actually collect.
Immediate Benefits Through PIP
Utah is a no-fault state for auto insurance, so you do not have to prove the driver was careless before benefits start flowing. A pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle qualifies for PIP benefits under the policy covering the vehicle that hit them.1Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-308 – Persons Covered by Personal Injury Protection Coverage follows the vehicle, so the driver’s insurer pays first even if you carry your own auto policy.
Utah sets statutory minimums that every auto policy must include:2Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-307 – Personal Injury Protection Coverages and Benefits
- Up to $3,000 for medical care, surgery, dental work, rehabilitation, ambulance transport, and hospital stays.
- Lost wages at the lesser of 85% of gross income or $250 per week, for up to 52 consecutive weeks. Benefits do not start for the first three days unless the disability lasts longer than two weeks, in which case the insurer pays retroactively.
- Household services up to $20 per day for up to 365 days if injuries stop you from cooking, cleaning, and similar tasks. The same three-day waiting rule applies.
- Death benefits of up to $1,500 for funeral or cremation costs, plus $3,000 to the deceased person’s heirs.
These are floors. Many drivers carry higher PIP limits, so the actual coverage on any given accident depends on the specific policy. A single emergency room visit can consume the $3,000 medical minimum quickly, which is why the second path matters.
When You Can Sue the Driver
PIP handles the first wave of expenses, but Utah blocks lawsuits against the driver unless your case crosses one of two lines. You can file a liability claim if your medical expenses exceed $3,000.3Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-309 – Limitations, Exclusions, and Conditions to Personal Injury Protection Given the cost of even routine emergency care, many pedestrian cases clear this dollar threshold within a single hospital visit.
You can also sue regardless of the medical total if the accident caused any of the following:3Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-309 – Limitations, Exclusions, and Conditions to Personal Injury Protection
- Death
- Dismemberment
- Permanent disability or impairment supported by objective medical findings
- Permanent disfigurement
A visible scar that never fades qualifies as permanent disfigurement even when the underlying treatment was inexpensive. These severity-based exceptions exist because certain injuries do lasting harm that a medical bill total will not capture.
What You Can Recover
Once you are past the threshold, you can pursue both economic and non-economic damages through the driver’s liability insurance. Economic damages cover past and future medical costs, lost wages, and diminished earning capacity. Non-economic damages cover pain, emotional distress, and the impact on your quality of life and relationships. Utah does not cap non-economic damages in most personal injury cases, so a jury can award what it believes the evidence supports. Punitive damages may also be available where the driver’s conduct rises to extreme recklessness.
Utah’s minimum liability coverage is $30,000 per person and $65,000 per accident for bodily injury.4Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-304 – Motor Vehicle Liability Coverage Serious pedestrian injuries routinely blow past that number, which is where your own underinsured motorist coverage becomes essential.
How Fault Gets Divided
Utah uses a modified comparative fault system. Any percentage of fault assigned to you reduces your recovery by that same percentage. If a jury values your damages at $100,000 and finds you 20% responsible for crossing against a signal, you take home $80,000.5Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-5-818 – Comparative Negligence
The hard cutoff is 50%. If you are found equally or more at fault than the driver, you recover nothing. The statute requires the defendant’s share of fault to exceed yours before you can collect, so a 50-50 finding ends the case.5Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-5-818 – Comparative Negligence
The facts of the collision are what move that percentage up or down. Adjusters and juries look at whether you were in a crosswalk, whether the walk signal was in your favor, the driver’s speed, lighting, and whether either party was distracted. Being on your phone while crossing does not automatically defeat a claim, but it raises your fault percentage. Distraction in a marked crosswalk with a green signal reads very differently from distraction while crossing mid-block against traffic.
Utah’s underlying right-of-way rules still frame that analysis. Drivers must yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk on the driver’s half of the road or close enough from the other half to be in danger, and a driver approaching a school crosswalk must come to a complete stop when anyone is in it.6Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-1002 – Pedestrians Right-of-Way — Duty of Pedestrian Every driver in Utah also owes a general duty of due care to avoid hitting pedestrians, and that duty applies even when the pedestrian is violating a traffic rule.7Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-1006 – Vehicles to Exercise Due Care to Avoid Pedestrians — Audible Signals and Caution Pedestrians in turn cannot dart off a curb into a vehicle too close to stop, and pedestrians crossing outside any crosswalk must yield to all traffic.8Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-1003 – Pedestrians Yielding Right-of-Way — Limits on Pedestrians Jaywalking does not automatically make you the responsible party, but it shifts the analysis against you.
When the Driver Has No Insurance or Not Enough
If the driver who hit you is uninsured, you can recover uninsured motorist benefits under your own auto policy. Utah specifically allows a pedestrian injured by an uninsured vehicle to collect UM benefits under any policy in which they are a covered person, and to recover under one additional policy if available.9Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-305.3 – Underinsured Motorist Coverage That stacking exception is meaningful because Utah generally bars combining limits from multiple policies.
Underinsured motorist coverage applies when the driver has some insurance but not enough. UIM sits behind the driver’s liability policy, so you have to exhaust the driver’s limits first before your own UIM pays.9Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-305.3 – Underinsured Motorist Coverage Because many Utah drivers carry only the $30,000 minimum, carrying strong UM and UIM limits on your own policy is one of the best financial protections available, even if you rarely drive.
If the Driver Left the Scene
A driver in an accident that injures someone must stop, stay, and share their name, address, vehicle registration, and insurance information with the injured person and any investigating officer. They must also provide reasonable assistance, including arranging transportation to a hospital when treatment appears necessary.10Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-401.3 – Accident Involving Injury — Stop at Accident — Penalty
Leaving the scene carries criminal penalties that scale with the injuries:
- Injury: Class A misdemeanor with a minimum $750 fine.10Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-401.3 – Accident Involving Injury — Stop at Accident — Penalty
- Serious bodily injury (substantial risk of death, extreme pain, protracted disfigurement, or loss of organ function): third-degree felony with a minimum $750 fine.10Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-401.3 – Accident Involving Injury — Stop at Accident — Penalty
- Death: third-degree felony with a minimum $750 fine.11Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-401.5 – Accident Involving Death — Stop at Accident — Penalty
A third-degree felony in Utah carries up to five years in prison. These penalties sit alongside, not in place of, the driver’s civil liability for your injuries. If the driver cannot be identified, your own uninsured motorist coverage is generally where the recovery comes from.
Deadlines to File
Utah gives you four years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit.12Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-2-307 – Within Four Years Miss that deadline and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case regardless of how strong the evidence is. Four years sounds generous, but serious cases involve long treatment timelines and evidence deteriorates fast.
Two situations cut that window sharply:
- Wrongful death claims must be filed within two years of the death.13Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-3-106 – Death of a Person — Suit by Heir or Personal Representative
- If the vehicle was operated by a government employee acting within their duties, you must file a written notice of claim with the government entity within one year. The notice must state the facts, the nature of the claim, and the damages incurred so far, and failing to file it bars the claim entirely.14Utah Legislature. Utah Code 63G-7-401 – Claim Against a Governmental Entity or a Governmental Employee
If the injured pedestrian is a minor, the clock generally does not start until they turn 18, and the four-year period runs from there.
Protecting Your Claim
The steps in the hours and days after a collision shape everything that follows. Call 911 so both medical response and an official police report get moving. Utah requires the driver to notify the nearest law enforcement agency immediately when a crash causes injury, death, or apparent property damage of $2,500 or more.15Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-402 – Accident Reports — Duty of Operator and Investigative Officer to File The police report documents location, parties, witness statements, and often the officer’s observations about damage patterns and road conditions. If you can speak with the responding officer, make sure your account is on the record.
If you are able, photograph the scene from multiple angles: the crosswalk or its absence, traffic signals, skid marks, vehicle damage, and your injuries. Get names and phone numbers of witnesses before they leave.
Seek medical treatment promptly even when injuries seem minor. Adrenaline masks pain, and delayed symptoms are common in pedestrian collisions. Records created shortly after the accident tie your injuries directly to the impact, which matters when the insurer questions whether your condition is pre-existing.
Keep every receipt: emergency room bills, prescriptions, physical therapy records, employer verification of missed work, and rideshare receipts if you cannot drive. These records prove your economic damages and establish whether you have cleared the $3,000 medical threshold that unlocks a full liability claim.3Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-309 – Limitations, Exclusions, and Conditions to Personal Injury Protection Gaps in documentation are where claims fall apart. Adjusters look for breaks in treatment and missing paperwork as reasons to reduce what they owe.