Hit & Run Accidents: How we help

Being hit by someone who then drives away adds insult to injury in a very literal sense. Most people assume that if the driver is never identified, that is the end of it. Frequently it is not.

Drivers Are Identified More Often Than People Expect

A vehicle that leaves a scene is not necessarily gone for good, and there are more avenues than most people realize.

Vehicles shed evidence. Paint transfer, broken trim, mirror housings, and glass left at the scene can identify a make and model, sometimes narrowly. Damage severe enough to require repair eventually reaches a body shop. Cameras in the surrounding area may have captured the vehicle before or after, even where they missed the impact itself.

We pursue these avenues rather than waiting to see whether anyone else does. Investigations vary in how much resource they receive, and a private effort running alongside frequently turns up what a stretched caseload does not.

The First Hours Matter Most

If you are able, or someone with you is, note whatever can be observed immediately: color, body style, any part of a plate, direction of travel, damage to the fleeing vehicle, and anything about the driver.

Partial information is far more useful than people assume. Three plate characters plus a color and body style is a workable search. A distinctive dent or a missing hubcap can confirm a match later.

Nearby businesses and residences should be canvassed for footage quickly, because most systems overwrite within days and nobody preserves anything for an incident they did not know happened.

When Nobody Is Ever Found

Sometimes, despite everything, the driver is not identified. That does not automatically mean there is no recovery available.

Depending on the circumstances and on what coverage exists, there may be avenues that do not depend on identifying the other driver at all. Whether any apply to your situation depends on details specific to you, and it is worth having someone look rather than concluding on your own that nothing can be done.

We review this at no cost. A significant number of people never ask, and simply absorb the loss.

Reporting, and Doing It Promptly

Report the incident to law enforcement as soon as you can, even if you have almost no information about the vehicle.

That report creates a contemporaneous record establishing that the collision happened, when, and that another vehicle was involved and left. Where a claim later proceeds without an identified driver, the existence and timing of that report can matter a great deal, and a report made days later is weaker than one made immediately.

Get the report number and keep it. Also note anyone who stopped at the scene, since witnesses who saw the other vehicle leave can be important and are usually strangers who will not be findable later.

Pedestrians and Cyclists

A disproportionate number of hit-and-run incidents involve people on foot or on bikes, often at night, and these tend to produce the most serious injuries.

They also tend to have the least information available, because the injured person may have been struck from behind or lost consciousness. Here the physical evidence at the scene and the surrounding camera coverage do nearly all the work, and both degrade quickly. If someone in your family was struck and the driver left, an early call matters more in these cases than almost any other kind.

Your Own Injuries Come First

People sometimes delay treatment while focused on whether the driver will be found, as though the claim depends entirely on that question.

It does not, and delayed treatment creates a gap in the record that causes problems regardless of how the identification question resolves. Get seen, follow through with care, and let someone else pursue the vehicle.

Why Drivers Leave

Understanding the reasons is occasionally useful, because it points at where to look.

Drivers flee because they were impaired, because they were driving without a license or insurance, because the vehicle was not theirs, or because they panicked. Several of those mean the driver has a history that makes them findable, and some mean the vehicle itself will surface — abandoned, reported stolen after the fact, or repaired quietly at a shop willing not to ask.

It also bears on what happens afterward. A driver who fled and is later identified is in a considerably worse position than one who stopped, and that frequently affects how a claim resolves.

Property Damage Alone Is Still Worth Reporting

People sometimes skip reporting when a parked car is struck and nobody was hurt, on the assumption that it is not worth the effort.

Report it anyway. Parking structures, residential streets, and business lots are heavily covered by cameras, and these vehicles are identified more often than moving hit-and-runs. A report also protects you if an injury emerges later, which happens more than people expect after a low-speed impact.

If your parked vehicle was struck, photograph the damage and any paint transfer before anything is repaired.

Working With Our Firm

We handle hit-and-run claims on contingency, so there is no fee to talk with us and no attorney fee unless we recover for you. We work throughout Miami-Dade and Broward, in English and Spanish.

If a driver hit you and left, call before assuming nothing can be done. That assumption is wrong often enough to be worth one phone call.