You can still recover for your injuries if you were crossing outside a crosswalk when you were hit. California is a pure comparative negligence state, which means being partly at fault reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault but does not eliminate it. A pedestrian found 30 percent at fault for crossing mid-block recovers 70 percent of their damages. Even a pedestrian found mostly at fault can recover the remaining share. Jaywalking is an argument about percentages, not a bar.
What decides these cases is what the driver was doing. A driver must use reasonable care for pedestrians everywhere, not only at crosswalks, and that duty is written into the Vehicle Code. In practice the file turns on speed, distraction and sight lines. A driver doing 48 in a 35 on Reseda Boulevard at night who never braked is in a very different position from a driver doing 30 who had a pedestrian step out from between two parked vans. The first case tends to settle with most of the fault on the driver. The second is a real fight over percentages. The phone records, the event data recorder in the car, skid marks or the lack of them, and the lighting at the spot are the evidence that moves the number.
Can I get compensation if I was jaywalking and got hit by a car?
Yes. California applies pure comparative fault, so crossing outside a crosswalk reduces your recovery by whatever percentage of blame is assigned to you, but it never reduces it to zero on that basis alone. The driver still owed you a duty to pay attention, drive at a safe speed and avoid you if reasonably possible. Since 2023 police may not even cite a pedestrian for crossing mid-block unless there was an immediate danger of a collision, though the insurer can still argue it as comparative fault.
What the law says about crossing mid-block
The Freedom to Walk Act (AB 2147) changed Vehicle Code 21955 as of January 1, 2023. A pedestrian may now cross outside a marked crosswalk or against a signal without being stopped or cited unless a reasonably careful person would see an immediate danger of a collision. The change was aimed at ticketing, not at civil liability. An insurer can still argue that you should not have crossed where you did and that a reasonable person would have waited.
At the same time, Vehicle Code 21950 and the rest of the pedestrian provisions keep the driver’s duty in place. The driver must exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian on the roadway, reduce speed when needed, and take any other action necessary to avoid a collision. Those words matter in a mid-block case. “She wasn’t in a crosswalk” is not a defense to “you were texting at 45 miles an hour.”
How fault gets divided in a jaywalking case
There is no formula. Two examples of how it tends to shake out, labeled as examples, not predictions.
Example one. A man crosses Sepulveda near Victory at 9 p.m. between intersections, wearing dark clothing, where the nearest crosswalk is 300 feet away. The driver is sober, going the limit, and brakes but can’t stop. An insurer will open by putting 60 to 80 percent of the fault on the pedestrian, and a jury might land somewhere in that area. The claim still has value, especially with a serious injury, but it is reduced.
Example two. A woman crosses Ventura Boulevard in Encino mid-block in the afternoon, in daylight, with cars stopped in the near lane. A driver in the far lane is looking at a navigation screen, never slows, and hits her at 35. The driver’s phone shows activity at the moment of impact. Here the pedestrian’s share may be 10 to 25 percent, and the driver carries the rest.
The difference between the examples is entirely about what the driver was doing and whether the driver could have seen and avoided the pedestrian. That is where the investigation goes.
What the driver’s insurer will argue
The insurer’s first position in almost every mid-block case is that the pedestrian “darted out” and the driver “had no time to react.” Expect the word “darted” in the adjuster’s letter whether or not anyone saw it happen. The answer is physics and records: the distance from the curb to the point of impact, the driver’s speed from the car’s event data recorder, reaction time, and whether the driver braked at all. If the pedestrian was 20 feet into a 40-foot roadway when hit, the driver had seconds to see them.
The insurer will also pull the police report and lean on any note that the pedestrian was “not in crosswalk.” Officers write that as a fact, not as a legal conclusion, and the report is not the last word on fault.
What you should do now
Get the medical care you need first and follow up with a doctor within a day or two, even if you were released from the ER. Pedestrian injuries from a 30 mile an hour impact are rarely minor, and the record of early treatment is what the insurer will scrutinize. Then preserve what you can: the exact spot, photos of the street and lighting, any nearby business cameras, and the names of people who stopped. Do not give the driver’s insurer a recorded statement about where you were crossing or why. Those statements get used to raise your percentage.
If the driver had minimum coverage, which in California is $30,000 per person for injury under Vehicle Code 16056, a serious pedestrian injury will exceed it quickly. Your own auto policy’s uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can apply to you as a pedestrian, and so can a resident relative’s policy. That is often the larger source of recovery.
Common mistakes
Apologizing at the scene and saying “I shouldn’t have crossed there.” Telling the ER you “ran into the street.” Waiting weeks to see a doctor because the fault seemed like yours. Posting about the crash. Accepting a quick settlement from the driver’s insurer before the extent of the injury is known. And assuming the case is worthless because a ticket or a report said jaywalking.
Questions people ask next
What if I was crossing against the signal in a crosswalk? Same analysis. Crossing against a “don’t walk” signal is comparative fault, but the driver still had to look and yield if they could.
What if I was drunk when I was hit? Intoxication raises your share of fault and the insurer will use it, but it does not bar the claim. The driver’s conduct is still measured on its own.
Can I recover if the driver left the scene? Yes, through your own uninsured motorist coverage, provided you report the hit and run to police promptly, usually within 24 hours, and the policy terms are met.
Manoukian Law Firm handles pedestrian injury cases throughout the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles County, and the attorney handles each one personally, starting with the evidence of what the driver was doing. If you were hit while crossing outside a crosswalk, call (818) 818-5031 for a free consultation.
