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Ohio Pedestrian Accident Lawyers
Hit by a driver while you were on foot?
Our family has stood up for injured Ohioans since 1953.
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Since 1953
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Millions Won
For Our Clients
3 Generations
of Knisley Attorneys
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Unless We Win
Who Pays After a Pedestrian Accident in Ohio?
Ohio is an at-fault state. The driver who hit you is generally responsible for what the crash costs, and being on foot does not change that. You may recover if you were not more than half at fault.
Almost every pedestrian file opens with the same sentence from the driver: they stepped right out in front of me. Adjusters lean on it because shifting fault onto you is worth money to them. Under the comparative negligence rule in Ohio personal injury law, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, and more than 50 percent bars it entirely (R.C. 2315.33). Being the person on foot is not fault. Our job is to replace that story with what the crossing and the evidence actually show.
Did the driver have to yield to me?
Often, yes. When you are crossing inside a crosswalk, a driver has to slow down or stop and let you cross (R.C. 4511.46). The part most people never hear is that Ohio counts unmarked crosswalks at intersections, not just the ones with paint on the road, so “there was no crosswalk there” is rarely the end of the conversation. The same law bars a driver from passing a vehicle that has stopped at a crossing to let someone through, which is exactly how people get hit in the second lane. A driver also has to yield to anyone on a sidewalk (R.C. 4511.441), which covers the car backing out of a driveway or pulling across a sidewalk without looking.
What if I was crossing outside a crosswalk?
You may still have a case. Ohio does require you to yield to traffic when you cross somewhere other than a crosswalk (R.C. 4511.48), and an adjuster will make sure you know it. What they will not tell you is that the same statute does not relieve a driver of the duty to use care to avoid hitting a pedestrian anywhere on the road. Crossing mid-block may reduce what you recover. On its own, it does not end your claim.
Why your own coverage matters when you are hit on foot
Ohio's minimum liability limits are 25/50/25 (R.C. 4509.51). In plain terms, that is up to 25,000 dollars for one injured person, 50,000 dollars total per crash, and 25,000 dollars for property damage. Nothing stood between you and the vehicle, so hospital bills pass those numbers quickly. If the driver carried the minimum, carried nothing, or drove off, the uninsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy may become the real source of recovery, even though you were walking and not driving (R.C. 3937.18).
You can still recover when
You were partly at fault, up to 50 percent
You were crossing outside a crosswalk, in
most cases
There was no painted crosswalk where you crossed
The driver fled or had no insurance, through your own UM coverage
How fault limits recovery
Your award is reduced by your percentage
of fault
More than 50 percent at fault means no recovery
What the driver told the adjuster is not the final word. Evidence is.
What to Do After a
Pedestrian Accident in Ohio
Get medical care, document the crossing, get the official crash report, and be careful with the adjusters who call. Under Ohio law you generally have two years from the crash to file
a lawsuit.
Call 911 And Get Checked Out
Get examined even if you walked away, because the injuries people shrug off at the scene are often the serious ones.
Photograph Where It Happened
Capture where you were in the road, the crossing, the signals, and where the car came to rest.
Get The Official Crash Report
Request the crash report from the investigating agency as soon as it is available.
Be Careful With The Insurance Companies
Do not give the driver's adjuster
a recorded statement or accept
a quick check.
Talk To An Attorney Early
Ohio generally allows two years to file suit (R.C. 2305.10), and
the blame fight starts long
before that.
Compensation You Can Recover After an Ohio Pedestrian Accident
A pedestrian accident claim can pay your medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and the long-term care your injuries require. Because these injuries are often severe, future costs carry real weight.
Medical Bills
Every crash-related cost, from the ambulance and the ER through surgery, therapy, and the care still ahead of you.
Lost Wages
The paychecks you missed, and the earning power you lose if your injuries keep you from the work you used to do.
Pain And Suffering
Compensation for what the crash took from your daily life, which no insurer volunteers to pay.
Long-Term Care Costs
Home health care, rehabilitation, a wheelchair or prosthetic, and the changes your home may need so you can live in it.
What is your pedestrian accident claim worth?
There is no set price, and these claims deserve careful valuation because being struck on foot tends to cause injuries that outrun the first stack of bills. Value turns on how severe and permanent your injuries are, the care your doctors expect you to need, how the fault fight lands, the coverage available including your own policy, and what the crash took from your work and your life. We cannot promise a number, but we can show you how it is really decided.
If the driver who hit you was intoxicated, or otherwise acted with conscious disregard for your safety, you may be able to seek punitive damages under Ohio law, in addition to your other recovery.
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Dealing With the
Insurance Company
The driver's insurer opens a pedestrian file with the story already written: you came out of nowhere. You do not have to accept that story, and you do not have to face them alone.
The first calls sound friendly, but every one of them has a job to do. The adjuster invites you to give a recorded statement to get your side, then asks how far the car was away, how fast it was going, and what color the signal was. You were walking, not surveying the intersection, so any honest answer is a guess, and a guess is what they need to move fault onto you. The broad medical release they send lets them dig for old injuries to blame. The quick check that arrives while you are still in a brace is priced to close the file before anyone knows what your recovery will cost. Once you sign a release, the claim is over for good, no matter what the injuries turn out to be. You do not have to talk to them at all. Refer every call to us, and the pressure stops.
Why the first offer is almost never the real number
The first offer already has a discount built into it for the share of fault the adjuster decided was yours. Once the evidence puts fault where it belongs, the number moves.
Pedestrian Accidents and Injuries We Handle
We represent Ohioans struck on foot in crosswalks, at mid-block crossings, by turning and backing vehicles, and by drivers who fled, with injuries from fractures to brain and spinal injuries.
Turning-vehicle strikes
A driver turning right on red or left across your crossing is watching for other cars, not for you. It is one of the most common ways people on foot get hit.
Mid-block and
unmarked-crossing strikes
The crashes adjusters fight hardest, because they lead with the absence of paint on the road. Ohio law is more forgiving here than most people expect.
Crosswalk and intersection strikes
A driver rolls through a crossing that was yours to use. These are the clearest right-of-way cases we handle.
Passing a stopped vehicle
One driver stops to let you cross and a second swings around them into your path. Ohio law says that second driver should never have passed.
Backing, driveway, and
parking-lot strikes
A car reversing out of a driveway or pulling across a sidewalk without looking. Drivers owe you the right of way on a sidewalk.
Hit-and-run and
uninsured-driver strikes
When the driver leaves the scene or turns out to carry nothing, your own coverage may become the claim.
Drunk and distracted
driver strikes
Impaired and phone-distracted drivers, where punitive damages may come into play.
Children struck near schools
and buses
A child hit walking home from school or waiting at a bus stop. We handle these claims with the care a child's long recovery deserves.
How Our Ohio Pedestrian Accident Attorneys Help
Our family takes the fight to the insurance company, from the first phone call to the courtroom.
Investigating the Crash and
Proving Fault
We collect the crash report, witness statements, and photographs, and bring in reconstruction experts when the fault fight calls for it.
Finding Every Source of Coverage
We look past the driver’s policy to the coverage on your own, because a minimun policy rarely covers what these injuries cost.
Proving the
Right-of-Way Violation
We measure the crossing, pull the signal timing, and show where the driver's duty to yield began, so the blame does not land on you by default.
Calculating Your Full Damages
We work with your doctors to value the future care and lost earning potential the crash will cost you, as well as the bills that have already arrived.
Dealing With the
Insurance Company
All calls, letters and requests from the other side must go through us, so nothing you say can be used to reduce
your claim.
Filing Suit and Trial
If the insurance carrier will not pay fairly, we file a lawsuit within the two-year statute of limitations and take your case to a jury.
In a pedestrian case the crossing itself is the evidence. The paint on the road, the signal timing, the sightlines, the streetlight, the point of impact on the car and where it stopped, the footage from the shop on the corner or a neighbor's doorbell, the driver's phone records. Most of it has a short life. Camera footage is often overwritten within days, and the road gets swept. The earlier that work starts, the less room the driver's story has to harden into the official version.
Three generations of our attorneys have done this work, and it costs nothing up front: we charge no fee unless we win your case.
Struck on Foot While Working?
If you were on foot for your job when the driver hit you, you may have two claims: an Ohio Workers' Comp claim and this personal injury claim against the at-fault driver. We handle both under one roof.
Your Workers' Comp Claim
No-fault, runs through the BWC
Covers your medical care and part of your lost wages, no matter who caused the crash.
Your Personal Injury Claim
Against the at-fault driver
Adds the pain and suffering and the rest of the lost wages that Workers' Comp does not pay.
Road crews, delivery and postal walkers, valets, and tow operators all spend their shifts on foot in traffic, and the two claims are connected. The BWC has a right to be reimbursed out of your recovery for part of what it paid, and we negotiate that down so you keep more. When one firm handles both claims, the two insurers cannot use one against the other, and we time each settlement so one check does not reduce what you keep from the other.
Related Personal Injury Cases We Handle
Our family also handles these related personal injury cases for injured Ohioans.
Semi and commercial truck crashes, where federal rules and bigger policies change the case.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Pedestrian Accidents in Ohio
