Texas Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

Every Driver Owes You a Duty — Crosswalk or Not

Texas drivers must yield to pedestrians in marked and unmarked crosswalks, obey signals, and — everywhere, always — keep a proper lookout and maintain control of their vehicle. Insurance adjusters lean hard on the myth that a pedestrian outside a crosswalk has no claim. That is not the law. Even where a pedestrian shares some fault, Texas's proportionate responsibility rule allows recovery so long as the pedestrian was not more than 50% responsible, with damages reduced by their percentage. Our job is to prove what actually happened: the driver's speed, sight lines, distraction, and the time they had to see and avoid a human being in the roadway.

Where and Why Texas Pedestrians Get Hit

The patterns in our cases repeat: drivers turning left or right through a crosswalk while looking only at oncoming traffic; distracted drivers drifting through intersections in Dallas, Tyler, and Sulphur Springs; drivers overrunning parking lots and driveways where families walk; rural highway strikes where no sidewalk exists and pedestrians legally walk the shoulder; nighttime collisions blamed on "dark clothing" when the real cause was speed and inattention; and weather cases — like our $450,000 recovery for Derrick J., struck in icy conditions — where drivers failed to adjust to conditions as Texas law requires. A large share of pedestrian fatalities involve an impaired driver, which adds dram shop liability against the bar that overserved them.

Pedestrian Injuries Are Catastrophic by Default

A vehicle-versus-body collision at even 30 miles per hour produces the injuries we see in every pedestrian file: traumatic brain injuries from the secondary impact with pavement, spinal fractures, shattered legs and pelvises from bumper strikes, internal organ damage, and degloving and crush injuries. Recovery timelines run months to years, and many clients never return to their prior work. That's why we value pedestrian cases with the same rigor as our trucking cases — life-care planning for future treatment, economist projections of lost earning capacity, and full development of pain, impairment, and disfigurement damages Texas juries can award.

Building the Case: Evidence That Decides Pedestrian Claims

Pedestrian cases are won at the scene and in the first two weeks. We secure intersection and business camera footage before it overwrites, download vehicle event data showing speed and braking, obtain signal-timing records for crosswalk cases, photograph sight lines from the driver's seat position, and interview witnesses while memories are fresh. Where the driver was cited — failure to yield, DWI — we obtain the full citation and prosecution record. Where roadway design contributed (missing sidewalks, non-functioning crossing signals), governmental claims may exist, with short notice deadlines that make immediate action essential.

Compensation and Insurance in Pedestrian Cases

You don't need to own a car to have coverage: the driver's liability policy pays first, but your own auto policy's uninsured/underinsured motorist and PIP coverage — or a resident family member's policy — can also apply to you as a pedestrian. Many injured pedestrians never learn this and leave their own coverage unclaimed. We identify every applicable policy and pursue every category of damages: all medical care past and future, lost wages and earning capacity, pain and mental anguish, impairment, and disfigurement. If a loved one was killed while walking, our wrongful death practice stands ready to help your family.

Why Pedestrians and Their Families Choose McKay Law

Because the firm is built for exactly this fight: a Rapid Response team that reaches scenes while evidence exists, a staff nurse who guides your medical care through a long recovery, attorneys who counter the "jaywalking" playbook with reconstruction rather than argument, and a fee structure — free consultation 24/7, no fee unless we win — that lets any injured Texan afford the same representation. With offices across the state and deep roots in East Texas, we've stood with pedestrians and grieving families from Sulphur Springs to Dallas, and our results show it.

Texas Pedestrian Law: What Drivers — and Walkers — Must Do

The Texas Transportation Code sets the rules both sides argue about after a strike. Drivers must yield to pedestrians lawfully in crosswalks, may not pass vehicles stopped for a crossing pedestrian, must exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian and sound the horn when necessary, and owe heightened care around children and obviously confused or incapacitated persons — a duty that exists everywhere, not just at intersections. Pedestrians, for their part, must obey signals, yield outside crosswalks, and use sidewalks where provided, walking against traffic on the shoulder where they aren't. Adjusters treat any pedestrian-side rule as case-closing; Texas law treats it as one factor in proportionate responsibility. The driver's due-care duty survives every pedestrian misstep, and the question juries actually answer is whether an attentive driver would have seen and avoided you. Usually, the physical evidence says yes.

Nighttime, Parking Lots, and the Cases Insurers Undervalue

Three pedestrian scenarios get systematically lowballed. Night strikes: insurers lead with "dark clothing," but headlights are required to illuminate the road ahead, speed must match visibility, and reconstruction frequently shows the pedestrian was visible for seconds the driver spent looking elsewhere. Parking lots and driveways: low speeds don't mean low injuries — knockdown impacts break hips and cause head strikes, and lot design, backup camera use, and sight lines all bear on fault; these are also where children are most often struck, invoking the heightened duty. Shoulder and roadside strikes: disabled motorists walking for help, workers, and rural walkers are lawful shoulder users owed full care, and "he shouldn't have been there" is not a defense Texas law recognizes. We've recovered in all three patterns — including our icy-conditions truck-strike recovery of $450,000 — because the undervaluation is a negotiating posture, not a legal one.

Deadlines and the Insurance Timeline After a Pedestrian Strike

Three clocks run at once. The statute of limitations gives most Texas pedestrian claims two years, tolled for minors, with wrongful death claims running from the date of death. The notice clock is far shorter where a governmental entity may share fault — a city's broken crossing signal, a missing school-zone control, a state roadway design issue — because the Texas Tort Claims Act requires formal notice within months, and some city charters demand it in as little as 45 days. And the evidence clock is shortest of all: intersection cameras, doorbell systems, and business DVRs loop over in days, and skid marks and debris fields wash away with the first rain. Meanwhile the driver's insurer opens its file immediately, often calling victims in the hospital for recorded statements designed to lock in fault-friendly answers while medications and shock are still doing the talking. You owe that adjuster nothing. Politely decline, and let us handle every call from the day you hire us.

Serving Injured Pedestrians Across Texas

From our home office in Sulphur Springs and locations in Dallas, Tyler, Greenville, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso, McKay Law represents pedestrians hurt on the state's most dangerous corridors for people on foot: urban intersections along the I-30 and I-635 corridors in Dallas, college-area crossings in Tyler and Commerce, courthouse-square and school-zone crossings in Sulphur Springs, Paris, and Mount Pleasant, and the rural highway shoulders of Hopkins, Hunt, Franklin, and Titus Counties where walking is often the only option. Wherever it happened, the first consultation works the same: free, 24/7, English or Spanish, at (903) INJURED — and if you can't come to us, we come to you, including hospital and home visits for clients who can't travel. No fee unless we win.

When the Driver Was Drunk, Distracted, or Working

Aggravating facts change pedestrian case value, and we develop each one fully. Impaired drivers open two doors: exemplary damages against the driver for gross negligence, and Texas dram shop claims against the bar or restaurant that kept serving an obviously intoxicated patron — a second policy that matters enormously when the driver's limits are thin. Distracted drivers leave records: we subpoena phone data showing the texts, calls, and app activity in the seconds before impact, evidence juries punish. Working drivers — delivery vans, service trucks, employees running errands — bring their employer's commercial policy into the case through respondeat superior, plus negligent hiring and entrustment claims where the driving record should have kept them off the road. And hit-and-run drivers, once found, face juries that forgive nothing. The base claim is the driver's negligence; the full claim is everything the facts support — and we've never met an adjuster who volunteered the difference.

Your Questions, Answered