If you were hit by a car while walking in Utah, two things are true at the same time: the driver’s auto insurance owes you immediate medical and wage benefits regardless of who caused the crash, and you can sue the driver for your full losses once your injuries cross a specific legal threshold. Utah’s no-fault system handles the first dollars, and the liability system handles everything beyond that. How an auto-pedestrian accident in Utah pays out depends on your medical bills, the severity of your injuries, how fault is divided, and how much insurance is on both sides.
Immediate Benefits Through PIP
Utah is a no-fault state for auto insurance. A pedestrian struck by a vehicle qualifies for Personal Injury Protection benefits under the policy on the vehicle that hit them, and those benefits pay out whether or not the driver was at fault.1Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-308 – Persons Covered by Personal Injury Protection The coverage follows the vehicle, so the driver’s PIP is primary even if you carry your own auto policy.
Every Utah auto policy must include at least these PIP minimums:2Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-307 – Personal Injury Protection Coverages and Benefits
- Up to $3,000 in medical, surgical, dental, rehabilitation, ambulance, and hospital expenses.
- Lost wages at the lesser of 85% of gross income or $250 per week, for up to 52 consecutive weeks. Nothing pays for the first three days unless the disability lasts more than two weeks, in which case the insurer pays retroactively.
- Household services at up to $20 per day for up to 365 days, with the same three-day waiting period.
- Death benefits of up to $1,500 for funeral or cremation costs, plus $3,000 to the heirs.
Those are statutory floors. Some drivers carry higher PIP, so the real coverage depends on the policy. For many pedestrian injuries, $3,000 in medical coverage disappears in a single emergency room visit, which is why the next question matters.
When You Can Sue the Driver
PIP is not the end of what you can recover, but Utah bars a liability lawsuit against the driver unless your case clears one of two gates. The first is a dollar threshold: once your medical expenses pass $3,000, you can pursue a liability claim for the rest of your losses, including pain and suffering.3Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-309 – Limitations, Exclusions, and Conditions to Personal Injury Protection Given the cost of emergency treatment, most serious pedestrian injuries clear this quickly.
The second gate is severity. You can sue regardless of medical spending 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 can qualify as permanent disfigurement even if the underlying treatment was inexpensive.
Once you clear either threshold, you can pursue economic damages (past and future medical bills, lost wages, diminished earning capacity) and non-economic damages (pain, emotional distress, impact on your quality of life and relationships) through the driver’s liability insurance. Utah does not cap non-economic damages in most personal injury cases. In cases involving extreme recklessness, punitive damages may also be available.
The floor on the driver’s 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 easily blow past those limits, which is where your own coverage comes into play.
How Fault Is Divided
Utah applies modified comparative fault. Whatever share of the blame a jury assigns to you reduces your recovery by the same percentage. On a $100,000 verdict with 20% of fault assigned to you for crossing against a signal, you collect $80,000.5Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-5-818 – Comparative Negligence
Hit 50% and the recovery drops to zero. The statute requires the defendants’ combined fault to exceed your own, so a 50-50 split means you collect nothing.5Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-5-818 – Comparative Negligence
The facts of the collision drive the percentages. Adjusters and juries weigh whether you were in a crosswalk, whether the signal was in your favor, the driver’s speed, lighting, and whether anyone was distracted. Drivers also carry a general duty of due care that applies even when a pedestrian is technically breaking a traffic rule, including sounding the horn when necessary and taking extra caution around children or anyone who looks confused or impaired.6Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-1006 – Vehicles to Exercise Due Care to Avoid Pedestrians — Audible Signals and Caution At school crosswalks, drivers must come to a complete stop, not just yield, whenever anyone is in the crosswalk.7Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-1002 – Pedestrians Right-of-Way — Duty of Pedestrian Pedestrians have duties too: crossing outside a crosswalk means yielding to all vehicles, and darting off a curb into a car too close to stop shifts the fault analysis against you.8Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-1003 – Pedestrians Yielding Right-of-Way — Limits on Pedestrians Looking at your phone while crossing with a green signal in a marked crosswalk is treated very differently from doing it mid-block against traffic.
If the Driver Has No Insurance or Not Enough
Not every driver carries adequate insurance, and some carry none. If the car that hit you was uninsured, your own auto policy’s uninsured motorist coverage pays. Utah law allows a pedestrian struck by an uninsured vehicle to collect UM benefits under any policy on 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 This stacking exception is significant because Utah generally does not allow combining limits from multiple policies.
Underinsured motorist coverage picks up where the driver’s liability policy runs out. UIM is secondary, so you have to exhaust the driver’s limits before your own UIM pays.9Utah Legislature. Utah Code 31A-22-305.3 – Underinsured Motorist Coverage With many drivers carrying only the $30,000 minimum, carrying strong UM and UIM on your own policy is one of the better financial protections available, even if you rarely drive.
What the Driver Was Required to Do
A driver involved in a crash that injures someone must stop at the scene, provide their name, address, vehicle registration number, and insurance information, and give reasonable assistance, including arranging transportation to a hospital when needed.10Utah Legislature. Utah Code 41-6a-401.3 – Accident Involving Injury — Stop at Accident — Penalty
Leaving the scene triggers criminal penalties that scale with the harm:
- 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 are on top of any civil liability the driver still owes you.
How Long You Have to File
You have four years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit in Utah.12Utah Legislature. Utah Code 78B-2-307 – Within Four Years Miss it and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case regardless of how strong the evidence is. Four years sounds like plenty, but serious cases involve long treatment timelines and evidence that fades fast.
Two situations shorten the window:
- 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 has to state the facts, the nature of the claim, and the damages so far. Miss it and the claim is barred entirely.14Utah Legislature. Utah Code 63G-7-401 – Claim Against a Governmental Entity or a Governmental Employee
For an injured minor, the clock generally does not start until they turn 18. The standard four years begins then.
Protecting the Claim From Day One
What you do in the hours and days after the collision will shape the strength of any claim. Call 911 so there is both medical response and an official police report. If you can, photograph the scene from several angles: the crosswalk or absence of one, traffic signals, skid marks, vehicle damage, and your injuries. Collect names and phone numbers of witnesses before they leave.
Get medical treatment promptly even if nothing feels broken. Adrenaline masks pain, and delayed symptoms are common in pedestrian collisions. Records created shortly after the crash tie your injuries to the impact, which matters the moment an insurer questions whether something was pre-existing.
Save every receipt and document: emergency room bills, prescriptions, physical therapy notes, employer confirmation of missed work, and rideshare receipts if you cannot drive. These establish your economic damages and show whether you have crossed the $3,000 threshold needed to pursue 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 or deny what they owe.