Rights of Drunk Driving Crash Victims in Texas

If a drunk driver hit you in Texas, the law treats your case very differently from an ordinary rear-end bump. Texas is an at-fault (tort) state, so the driver who caused the crash, and that driver's insurer, are the ones responsible for your medical bills, lost income, and other losses.¹ The general concepts behind a drunk-driving claim are covered on our national hub. This page is about what is true in Texas specifically: the deadlines, the dollar figures, and the rules that decide how much you can actually recover.

Impaired driving is not rare here. The Texas Department of Transportation reported an average of 65 alcohol-related crashes every day, with three Texans killed daily in alcohol-related wrecks.² In Austin alone, thatcarhitme.com's crash reporting counted 11,937 crashes in 2025³ and 902 in May 2026.⁴ Some share of those involved a driver who had been drinking, and each one starts a legal clock.

Two years, and the clock is real

Texas gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. That deadline comes from Section 16.003(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which sets a two-year limitations period for personal injury and property damage claims.⁵ If your family lost someone, the wrongful death clock is also two years, but it runs from the date of death rather than the date of the crash.⁵ Miss the deadline and a court can dismiss the case no matter how obvious the drunk driver's fault was.

One point that surprises people: the criminal case against the driver does not pause or extend your civil deadline. The two run on separate tracks, and the two-year civil clock keeps ticking while the criminal prosecution plays out.

The criminal case and your civil claim run separately

In Texas, a driver is "intoxicated" at a blood or breath alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more, or when alcohol or drugs have taken away the normal use of mental or physical faculties.⁶ If the crash caused serious bodily injury, the driver can be charged with intoxication assault, a third-degree felony.⁷ If someone died, the charge is intoxication manslaughter, a second-degree felony.⁸ When a wreck involves a death or serious injury and the driver refuses testing, a Texas peace officer is required to take a blood specimen, which often locks in the BAC evidence that later supports your civil claim.⁹

A conviction or plea can come with a restitution order, and Texas also runs a Crime Victims' Compensation Program through the Attorney General that can reimburse victims for medical bills, counseling, lost wages, and funeral costs after other coverage is used up.¹⁰ Neither of those replaces a civil lawsuit. Restitution and victim compensation rarely cover the full cost of a serious injury, and the civil case is where you go after the rest.

Why a drunk driver changes the money

Texas caps punitive damages, which the statute calls exemplary damages, in most cases. Section 41.008(b) limits them to the greater of $200,000, or two times your economic damages plus an amount equal to your noneconomic damages up to $750,000.¹¹ There is an exception that matters a great deal in drunk-driving cases. Section 41.008(c) removes that cap entirely when the defendant's conduct amounts to a felony under a specific list of Penal Code offenses, and that list expressly names intoxication assault (Section 49.07) and intoxication manslaughter (Section 49.08).¹¹ For most crimes on the list you have to prove the act was done knowingly or intentionally. The statute carves 49.07 and 49.08 out of that requirement.¹¹

In plain terms, if a drunk driver seriously hurt or killed someone, the usual ceiling on punitive damages can come off, and you do not have to prove the driver meant to cause harm. You still must prove gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence, but drunk driving is exactly the kind of conduct Texas law lets a jury punish. Your compensatory damages, meaning medical costs, lost earnings, and pain, are not capped at all in an ordinary vehicle case. The medical-malpractice caps in Chapter 74 do not apply to a car crash.

When a bar or store shares the blame

Texas has a Dram Shop Act. Under Section 2.02 of the Alcoholic Beverage Code, a bar, restaurant, or store that sold or served the alcohol can be held liable if, at the time it served the drink, it was apparent the customer was "obviously intoxicated to the extent that he presented a clear danger to himself and others," and that intoxication was a proximate cause of the crash.¹² It is a demanding standard, and these claims usually turn on hard evidence: receipts, timestamps, surveillance video, and server testimony.

That statute is also the only door. Section 2.03 makes the Dram Shop Act the exclusive cause of action against an alcohol provider for the acts of an intoxicated customer, so you cannot sue the bar on a separate common-law theory.¹³ A dram shop claim can matter enormously when the drunk driver carried nothing but a minimum-limits policy, because a commercial establishment usually has far deeper insurance.

Comparative fault can shrink or erase your recovery

Texas uses modified comparative responsibility. Under Section 33.001, you can recover only if your share of the responsibility is 50 percent or less. At 51 percent or more, you recover nothing.¹⁴ If you are found partly at fault, your damages are reduced by your percentage. This is why a drunk-driving defendant and the insurer will often try to pin some of the blame on you, maybe for your speed or your lane position, to push you over the line or shave down the payout. The fight is rarely just about the other driver's drinking.

The insurance that actually pays

Texas requires drivers to carry at least $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage, usually written as 30/60/25.¹⁵ In a serious injury case those limits disappear fast, so two coverages on your own policy are worth checking.

The first is uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Texas insurers must include UM/UIM in every auto liability policy unless you rejected it in writing.¹⁶ If the drunk driver had no insurance, or not enough to cover your injuries, your own UM/UIM coverage can step in and pay. The second is personal injury protection, or PIP. Every Texas auto policy includes PIP unless you rejected it in writing, and insurers must offer at least $2,500 per person.¹⁷ PIP pays your medical bills and part of your lost income no matter who caused the crash, with no waiting period, so it can keep money flowing while fault is still being sorted out. Pull your own declarations page; you may have coverage you forgot you were paying for.

If your car was totaled or badly damaged, the property-damage side of the claim, including any diminished value, runs on the same two-year deadline as your injury claim.

First steps that protect the claim

Get a copy of the official crash report, which documents the responding officer's findings and any intoxication notes; you can pull it through the state system described on our Texas crash reports page. Get medical treatment and keep every record and receipt. And talk to a lawyer well before the two years runs out, and before you give any recorded statement to the other driver's insurer, since much of the evidence in a dram shop or punitive-damages claim has to be preserved early. You can start with our legal directory to find an attorney who handles Texas drunk-driving cases.

This article is general information about Texas law, not legal advice; for advice about your own situation, consult a licensed Texas attorney.

Sources

Texas Department of Insurance, Automobile insurance guide (Consumer Bulletin CB-020). https://www.tdi.texas.gov/pubs/consumer/cb020.html
Texas Department of Transportation, "TxDOT spotlights impact, loss from drunk driving." https://www.txdot.gov/about/newsroom/statewide/2024/txdot-spotlights-impact-loss-from-drunk-driving.html
thatcarhitme.com, Austin, TX Crash Report, 2025. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/texas/austin/2025-annual-report
thatcarhitme.com, Austin, TX Crash Report, May 2026. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/texas/austin/may-2026-report
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm
Texas Penal Code Section 49.01. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.49.htm
Texas Penal Code Section 49.07 (Intoxication Assault). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.49.htm
Texas Penal Code Section 49.08 (Intoxication Manslaughter). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.49.htm
Texas Transportation Code Section 724.012 (Taking of Specimen). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.724.htm
Office of the Texas Attorney General, Crime Victims' Compensation Program. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/crime-victims/crime-victims-compensation-program
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 41.008. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.41.htm
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code Section 2.02 (Dram Shop Act). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/AL/htm/AL.2.htm
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code Section 2.03 (Exclusivity of Statutory Remedy). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/AL/htm/AL.2.htm
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001 (Proportionate Responsibility). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.33.htm
Texas Transportation Code Section 601.072 (Minimum Coverage Amounts). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.601.htm
Texas Insurance Code Section 1952.101 (Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist Coverage Required). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/IN/htm/IN.1952.htm
Texas Insurance Code Sections 1952.152 and 1952.153 (Personal Injury Protection Coverage). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/IN/htm/IN.1952.htm

Rights of Drunk Driving Accident Victims in Texas