Hit-and-run laws and what to do in Delaware

Someone hit your car and drove off. Maybe you caught a partial plate, maybe nothing at all. Delaware treats leaving the scene as a crime, and the rules are specific: exact duties and numbers, plus deadlines that decide whether you get paid. Here is what the statutes actually say and what they mean for you.

What Delaware law requires a driver to do

Delaware puts three duties on a driver involved in a crash, and they escalate with how serious the crash is.

If the collision caused property damage or injury, 21 Del. C. § 4201 requires the driver to stop right away at the scene, or as close as possible without blocking traffic, find out whether anyone was hurt or killed, and hand over their name, address, vehicle registration, and driver's license to the other people involved.¹ Driving off instead is the hit-and-run.

When someone is injured or killed, § 4202 adds a duty to give reasonable assistance, which can mean calling an ambulance or getting the injured person to a doctor or a hospital.² Leaving without doing that is a separate and more serious offense.

After meeting those duties, § 4203 requires the driver to report the crash to the police agency that covers where it happened. Reporting is mandatory whenever there is injury or death, whenever a crash on a public highway causes property damage of $2,000 or more, or whenever a driver appears impaired by alcohol or drugs. The statute says to report it immediately.³

The penalties, by how serious the crash was

Delaware scales the punishment to the harm caused, and the jump between tiers is steep.

Leaving the scene of a property-damage crash carries a fine of not less than $230 and not more than $1,150, or imprisonment of not less than 60 days and not more than 6 months, under § 4201.¹

Leaving the scene of a crash that injured someone is an unclassified misdemeanor under § 4202. It is punishable by a fine of $1,000 to $3,000 or imprisonment of one to two years, and the state revokes the driver's license for one year.²

Leaving the scene of a crash that killed someone is a class E felony. The sentence has to include at least one year of incarceration, the first six months of it cannot be suspended, and the license revocation runs two years.²

These numbers matter to you as the person who was hit. They set what a fleeing driver is facing and, if that driver is caught, they shape the leverage behind your civil claim.

Report it, even though you are the one who got hit

The duty in § 4203 applies to you as well. If you were injured, or your car took $2,000 or more in damage on a public road, calling the police is what creates the official record.³ Your insurer, and later a court, will lean on that record. Delaware crash reports are kept by the Delaware State Police Traffic Operations Section.⁴ You can request your Delaware crash report here.

What your own coverage pays when the other driver is gone

Here is the part that surprises people. In Delaware you do not have to identify the other driver to get your medical bills paid.

Personal injury protection is required on every registered Delaware vehicle, and it pays no matter who was at fault. Under 21 Del. C. §§ 2118 and 2118B, your own PIP covers medical expenses and lost wages up to $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident, plus up to $5,000 in funeral costs, for expenses within two years of the crash.⁵ A hit-and-run does not change any of that. You file with your own carrier and the money comes without anyone proving who the other driver was. The same statutes give your insurer a schedule: it must send you a claim form within 10 days of getting notice and pay or deny a completed claim within 30 days, or it owes monthly interest on what it held back.⁵

For injuries past those PIP limits, uninsured motorist coverage is built for this exact situation. Section 3902 of Title 18 defines an uninsured vehicle to include a hit-and-run motor vehicle, and the law says the injury has to come from physical contact of that vehicle with you or your car, or from a noncontact vehicle where both the driver and the owner are unknown.⁶ Put plainly: if the car that struck you fled and was never identified, your UM coverage can step in. If a car ran you off the road without touching you, you can still be covered, but only if neither the driver nor the owner is ever identified and you reported the crash to police. Section 3902 also asks you to tell your insurer within 30 days or as soon as practicable.⁶

UM coverage comes at least at Delaware's minimum liability limits of 25/50, meaning $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, and it is included automatically unless you rejected it in writing.⁶⁷ Insurers also have to offer you higher underinsured limits up to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident.⁶ A UM property-damage claim carries a $250 deductible.⁶ If your car lost resale value from the damage, see diminished value claims in Delaware.

Deadlines that decide whether you can still recover

Delaware's clock is short. A lawsuit for personal injury has to be filed within two years of the crash under 10 Del. C. § 8119, and a claim for damage to your vehicle also runs two years under § 8107.⁸⁹ If the injured person was under 18, § 8116 pauses the clock while they are still a minor.¹⁰

One more Delaware rule affects the value of a claim if you were partly at fault. The state uses modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar under § 8132, so you can recover as long as you were not more than half to blame, with your award cut by your share.¹¹ In a clean hit-and-run where the other driver caused everything, that rarely comes up, but it matters if the other side tries to pin part of the crash on you.

If you want help

A fleeing driver you cannot identify, plus a UM claim against your own insurer, can turn complicated fast. If you would rather have someone handle it, you can find a Delaware attorney here.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. 21 Del. C. § 4201 (duty to stop; property-damage penalty), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title21/c042/index.html

2. 21 Del. C. § 4202 (duty in injury or death collisions; penalties), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title21/c042/index.html

3. 21 Del. C. § 4203 (duty to report collisions), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title21/c042/index.html

4. Delaware State Police, Traffic Operations Section. https://dsp.delaware.gov/traffic-unit/

5. 21 Del. C. §§ 2118, 2118B (PIP coverage and claim handling), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title21/c021/sc01/index.html

6. 18 Del. C. § 3902 (uninsured, underinsured, and hit-and-run vehicle coverage), Delaware Code Online. https://www.delcode.delaware.gov/title18/c039/index.html

7. 21 Del. C. § 2902 (minimum liability limits, 25/50/10), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title21/c029/sc01/index.html

8. 10 Del. C. § 8119 (two-year limit for personal injury), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title10/c081/index.html

9. 10 Del. C. § 8107 (two-year limit for damage to property), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title10/c081/index.html

10. 10 Del. C. § 8116 (tolling of the limitations period for minors), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title10/c081/index.html

11. 10 Del. C. § 8132 (modified comparative negligence), Delaware Code Online. https://delcode.delaware.gov/title10/c081/index.html