Dallas Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

Getting hit by a car changes everything in an instant. You feel the pain, the medical bills are rising, and the questions about who’s going to pay for it all appear. If you were recently injured as a pedestrian in Dallas, you don’t have to sort through any of that alone. At Steinger, Greene & Feiner, our  Dallas pedestrian accident attorneys can help:

• Trusted personal injury representation since 1997
• Over $2 billion recovered for more than 30,000 clients
• No upfront cost. You only pay if we recover compensation for you
• A team member available 24/7 by phone, chat, or virtual consultation

What to Do After a Pedestrian Accident in Dallas

Before we get into the legal side of things, let’s start with what matters most in the minutes and hours right after an accident. These are the first five steps you should take after getting in a pedestrian accident.

1. Seek emergency medical attention
   Since pedestrians often sustain more severe injuries than motorists and even cyclists, you’re more likely to need emergency medical care. Call 911, and wait for first responders to arrive at the scene.
2. Move to safety
   If you’re able to do so, move somewhere safe. Getting out of harm’s way will protect you from further injuries.
3. Call the police
   You should report an accident of any kind to the local police. Officers will arrive at the scene to ensure everyone’s safety, gather witness statements, and fill out a police report detailing what happened. Be sure to ask for a copy of this report for future reference.
4. Take photos and videos of the accident
   Remember, evidence is the foundation of any pedestrian accident case. Get plenty of photos and videos of the accident to support your claims during negotiations or litigation.
5. Notify your insurance provider
   Last but not least, let your insurance company know about the accident. This information enables them to initiate the claims process so you can get compensated.

All of this probably raises a fair question: why does a pedestrian accident need this level of care in the first place, when a routine fender-bender usually doesn’t? Here’s what makes these cases different.

Why Pedestrian Accident Claims Are Complicated for Victims

• Liability isn’t always one person’s fault. A driver is usually the starting point, but a poorly designed intersection, a distracted employer’s delivery driver, or even a malfunctioning traffic signal can mean more than one party shares responsibility, and sorting out who owes what takes real investigation, not just a police report.
• Insurance companies often try to shift blame onto you. Even when Texas law is on your side, adjusters routinely argue a pedestrian was jaywalking, crossing against a signal, or otherwise at fault, because every percentage of fault they can pin on you is a percentage they don’t have to pay.
• The evidence that matters disappears fast. Skid marks fade, surveillance footage gets overwritten within days, and witnesses’ memories aren’t as sharp a week later as they were an hour after the crash. Unlike a routine fender-bender with two insured drivers exchanging information, a pedestrian case often depends on evidence that has to be captured almost immediately or it’s gone.
• The injuries tend to be severe, and hard to fully value. Without a vehicle’s frame, airbags, or seatbelt to absorb impact, pedestrians struck by a vehicle are more likely to face long recoveries, ongoing medical care, and permanent limitations, all of which are harder to put a number on than repairing a bumper.
• Figuring out which insurance actually applies takes some digging. A driver’s liability coverage may not be the only policy in play. Your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, health insurance, or a hit-and-run scenario with no identified driver at all can each change how a claim gets pursued.

Part of what makes these cases complicated is how often they happen in the first place, and where. Here’s what the data, and Dallas’s own city planners, say about the scope of the problem.

What You Should Know About Pedestrian Accidents in Dallas

Pedestrian accidents are a serious and ongoing problem across Texas. According to TxDOT’s 2024 Texas Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Facts report, pedestrians were involved in 6,077 crashes statewide that year, resulting in 768 deaths and 1,452 suspected serious injuries.

Dallas has been tracking its own version of this problem closely. Under its Vision Zero initiative, the city maintains a High Injury Network identifying the corridors where pedestrians are most often killed or seriously injured. Some of the highest-risk corridors include Buckner Boulevard, Northwest Highway between Harry Hines Boulevard and Timberline Drive, Second Avenue, and Corinth Street. City transportation officials have pointed to a common thread on these roads: many were built as wide, high-speed arterials, some six lanes across, designed to move vehicles quickly rather than to accommodate people on foot.

Common Causes

Statewide, most pedestrian accidents come down to driver behavior:

• Negligent or distracted driving
• Failure to yield the right-of-way
• Speeding or aggressive driving
• Running a red light or stop sign
• Drunk or drugged driving
• Dangerous or careless turns

In Dallas specifically, the crash data and the city’s own transportation planners point to a few additional, locally-specific factors:

• Wide, high-speed arterial roads. Streets like Buckner Boulevard and Northwest Highway were built primarily to move vehicle traffic quickly, and that shows up directly in the injury data. Dallas’s Chief Transportation Planner has noted that once vehicle speeds climb much past 30 mph in areas with pedestrian traffic, the odds of a fatal outcome rise sharply.
• Poor access management. Corridors with frequent driveways, intersections, and median openings create more points where a vehicle’s path and a pedestrian’s path can cross unexpectedly: a pattern shared by several of Dallas’s highest-risk streets.
• High pedestrian traffic mixed with high vehicle speed. Areas where a lot of people are walking and vehicles are still moving fast, rather than one or the other, turn up disproportionately in the city’s high-injury data.

A few less common but still possible causes include malfunctioning traffic signals, poorly designed intersections, mechanical failures, and gaps in pedestrian infrastructure like missing sidewalks or crosswalks.

Some pedestrian accidents have a single, clear cause. Many others result from a combination of these factors, which is part of why a real investigation into what actually happened matters so much when building a case.

Texas Pedestrian Law: What It Means for You

Texas law spells out, in real detail, who has the right of way in different walking situations. What actually matters if you’ve been hit is simpler: in most everyday scenarios, the law puts the responsibility on drivers to watch for you and stop, not the other way around. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

• If you were crossing with a signal in your favor, such as a walk signal, or a green light with no separate pedestrian signal, drivers and cyclists were legally required to yield to you under Texas Transportation Code §§ 552.001–552.002. If a negligent driver hit you while you had the signal, that’s a strong sign the fault is on them, not you.
• If you were in a crosswalk with no traffic signal at all: a plain painted crosswalk at an intersection, for example- drivers approaching from your side of the road were still legally required to yield under § 552.003. Texas law even protects you from a second car: if one driver stops to let you cross, the car behind isn’t allowed to pass and drive around them.
• If you were crossing somewhere without a marked crosswalk, such as mid-block, say, or at an intersection with no crosswalk lines — § 552.005 shifts the responsibility more toward you to yield to traffic. This is the scenario insurance adjusters lean on hardest to argue a pedestrian was at fault. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a case; it means exactly where and how the crossing happened matters more to how strong that case is.
• If you were walking on the road because there was no sidewalk, or the sidewalk was unusable,Texas law actually changed in 2023 to protect you. Under House Bill 1277, which amended Transportation Code § 552.006 effective September 1, 2023, pedestrians are legally allowed to walk in the roadway, facing oncoming traffic, whenever a sidewalk is missing, blocked, or unsafe, think construction, flooding, storm debris, or ice. Before this law, someone in that exact situation could technically be cited just for walking in the road. (Texas Tribune, 2023)

Regardless of where you were walking, drivers owe you a baseline duty of care. Under Transportation Code § 552.008, drivers must exercise care to avoid hitting pedestrians, sound their horn when needed, and take extra precaution around children or anyone who appears confused or unable to protect themselves.

A driver who hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk can face criminal charges, not just a traffic ticket. Since Texas’s Lisa Torry Smith Act (S.B. 1055, 2021) added Transportation Code § 545.428, a driver who, with criminal negligence, causes bodily injury to a pedestrian in a crosswalk can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor — or a state jail felony if the injury is serious. Before this law, a crash like that could result in little more than a small fine.

One development worth watching: Texas lawmakers introduced S.B. 1013 in the 2025 legislative session, which would expand the legal definition of a “crosswalk” under Chapter 552 to include places where a sidewalk crosses a driveway — closing a gap where pedestrians hit while crossing a driveway currently have fewer legal protections than those hit at a marked intersection. As of this writing, that bill had not been signed into law. We’ll update this page if that changes.

None of this changes the most important thing: if you were hit while walking in Dallas, exactly where you were, what signal or crosswalk was involved, and what the driver was doing all matter enormously to how strong your case is — and they’re often exactly the kind of details that get lost or dispute.

Types of Compensation in Pedestrian Accident Cases

Pedestrian accident victims can claim two kinds of damages: economic and non-economic. Let’s take a closer look at the key differences between the two.

Economic Damages

Economic damages are objective, financial losses. They can include the following:

• Medical bills
• Personal property damage
• Rehabilitative care
• Lost wages

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are subjective losses that can’t be calculated in monetary terms. Here are some common examples:

• Pain and suffering
• Scarring and disfigurement
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Permanent impairment or disability

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How a Lawyer Can Help You Pursue Fair Compensation

After a pedestrian accident, most of what determines whether you recover fair compensation happens behind the scenes, long before any settlement offer or courtroom comes into play. Here’s what a lawyer is actually doing on your case, and why each piece matters to you.

Building the Evidence Your Case Needs

The strength of your case comes down to evidence, not because insurance companies get to decide what’s fair, but because evidence is what actually convinces them, or a jury, to see things your way. Our legal team typically gathers:

• Your medical records, which document the injury itself and connect it to the accident
• Photos and video of the scene, taken as close to the incident as possible, before conditions change
• Any available surveillance footage, from a nearby business, a traffic camera, or a rideshare vehicle
• Statements from witnesses who saw what happened
• Testimony from medical experts or accident reconstruction specialists, when the facts are disputed
• The official police or accident report

Each piece answers a different question an insurance company or jury will ask: what happened, how badly you were hurt, and who’s responsible. Missing even one can give an adjuster room to argue your case is weaker than it actually is.

Standing Between You and the Insurance Company

Insurance companies are in the business of paying out as little as possible, and that shows up in familiar ways: lowball offers, slow responses, and sometimes denying claims that should be paid. Our injury lawyer, who’s negotiated these cases before, knows what your policy actually covers, what a fair offer looks like for your specific injuries, and how to push back when an insurer isn’t dealing with you in good faith.

Handling What You Shouldn’t Have to Handle Alone

Beyond evidence and negotiation, a lawyer takes on the parts of a claim that are easy to get wrong at the worst possible time:

• Filing the claim itself, and making sure every form and deadline is handled correctly
• Helping you find medical providers who can treat you before a settlement is reached
• Reviewing the insurance policies that may apply to your accident
• Taking your case to court and presenting it to a jury, if a fair settlement isn’t offered

What This Actually Means for Your Compensation

None of this is about running up a bigger number for its own sake. It’s about making sure the compensation you pursue actually reflects what the accident cost you: your medical care, lost income, property damage, and the harder-to-quantify parts like pain and suffering. A lawyer who’s handled pedestrian accident cases before knows how to calculate those losses accurately and make the case for them, whether that’s across a negotiating table or in front of a jury.

You Don’t Have to Face This Alone

Recovering from a pedestrian accident is hard, physically, emotionally, and financially, and it’s completely normal to feel overwhelmed by everything in front of you right now. That’s exactly why we’re here. From your first conversation with us through every step that follows, our Dallas pedestrian accident attorneys will stay with you, explaining what’s happening and what comes next in plain language, not legal jargon. You don’t have to figure this out on your own, and you don’t have to have all the answers before you call.

Reaching us costs nothing to start:

• Call us: (800) 560-5059 — a team member is available 24/7
• Chat with us: live chat available right here on this page
• Reach out online: fill out our free case evaluation form, and we’ll follow up promptly
• Visit us: 1250 W Mockingbird Ln #350, Dallas, TX 75247

Contact us today for a free case evaluation. There’s no cost and no obligation to get started.