Hit-and-run laws and what to do in New Hampshire

A crash is stressful enough without the other driver speeding off. New Hampshire treats leaving the scene as its own offense, separate from whatever caused the collision, and the rules that decide whether you broke the law (or whether the person who hit you did) are written into specific statutes. Here is what those statutes actually say, what the deadlines are, and how a victim recovers when the other car is long gone.

What New Hampshire law makes you do after a crash

The controlling statute is RSA 264:25, "Conduct After Accident." Any driver who knows or should have known they were just in an accident has to stop immediately at the scene.¹ Stopping is only the first step. You then have to give the other people involved your name and address, your driver's license number, your insurance company and policy information, the vehicle's registration number, and the name and address of everyone riding with you.¹

If the other person is too hurt to take down that information, or has been removed from the scene, the statute says where it goes instead: to a uniformed police officer at the scene, or immediately to an officer at the nearest police station.¹ Handing your details to a cruiser counts. Driving off because "nobody was around to give it to" does not.

There is also a paperwork step people forget. If anyone was injured or killed, or if property damage tops $1,000, RSA 264:25 requires a written report to the Division of Motor Vehicles within 15 days of the crash, unless a police officer already investigated it, in which case the officer's report satisfies the requirement.¹ Given how little $1,000 of bumper damage is in 2026, most reportable fender-benders cross that line.

When leaving turns criminal, and how serious it gets

New Hampshire scales the punishment to the harm. Under RSA 264:29, failing to meet the property-damage or reporting duties is a misdemeanor for an individual driver.² A class A misdemeanor carries up to a year in jail and a fine up to $2,000; a class B misdemeanor carries no jail and a fine up to $1,200.³

The stakes jump when someone is hurt. If you fail to comply with the requirements "when death or personal injury results," or you give information you know or have reason to believe is false, RSA 264:29 makes it a class B felony.² That is up to seven years in state prison and a fine up to $4,000.³ The statute doesn't wait for a fatality. Personal injury alone is enough to push a hit-and-run into felony territory.

One thing worth being clear about: the charge turns on what you did after the collision, not on who caused it. You can be completely faultless in how the crash happened and still commit a felony by driving away from an injured person.

The hit to your license

A conviction under RSA 264:25 also lands six demerit points on your New Hampshire driving record, the tier the state reserves for its serious moving violations.⁴ Points drive the suspension math, and the threshold depends on your age.

For a driver 21 or older, the Division of Motor Vehicles can suspend a license for up to three months at 12 points in 12 months, up to six months at 18 points in 24 months, and up to a year at 24 points in 36 months.⁵ One conduct-after-accident conviction is six of those points, half of the adult one-year threshold on its own. For drivers under 18 the trigger is only six points in a year, so a single hit-and-run conviction can reach it by itself; for drivers 18 to 20, it takes nine.⁵ A young driver, in other words, can lose the license off one incident where an adult would not.

If you're the one who got hit and the driver took off

Report it to the police right away, while paint transfer, debris, and any partial plate you caught are still fresh. A police investigation also takes the 15-day DMV paperwork off your plate, since the officer's report stands in for it.¹ When you later need the official record of the crash, New Hampshire routes that through the DMV, and you can pull your New Hampshire crash report here.

Here is the part that matters most for getting paid. New Hampshire is unusual: it doesn't require most drivers to carry auto liability insurance at all, only to be able to meet a financial-responsibility obligation if they cause harm.⁶ So the driver who fled, even if caught, may have nothing behind them. Your own policy is often the real source of recovery.

If you bought New Hampshire auto coverage, state law already built in the protection for exactly this situation. RSA 264:15 is titled "Uninsured or Hit-and-Run Motor Vehicle Coverage," and it requires every policy to cover people who are legally entitled to recover for bodily injury from the owners or drivers of uninsured vehicles and hit-and-run vehicles.⁷ Your uninsured-motorist limits have to match your own liability limits unless you rejected the higher amount in writing.⁷ A driver who hits you and vanishes is the textbook hit-and-run claim this coverage was written for. If the driver is caught and does carry insurance, the New Hampshire minimum is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage.⁸

Two more coverages help while you sort things out. Every private passenger policy issued in New Hampshire has to include at least $1,000 per person in medical payments coverage, which pays your crash-related medical bills regardless of who was at fault and covers costs you run up within three years of the crash.⁹ Those medical-payments benefits are non-subrogable under RSA 264:17, so your insurer can't claw them back out of a later settlement.¹⁰ If you carried collision coverage, it can repair your car now while the fault question plays out, and a fled-scene collision can still leave your vehicle worth less on paper, which is what a diminished value claim addresses.

The deadlines and the fault rule that shape your case

You do not have unlimited time. A New Hampshire injury or property-damage claim from a crash falls under RSA 508:4, which gives you three years from the date of the accident to sue.¹¹ Miss it and the claim is gone, no matter how clearly the other driver was at fault.

New Hampshire follows modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar under RSA 507:7-d. You can recover as long as you were not more at fault than the driver you're suing, but your award drops by your share of the blame, and once you cross above 50% you recover nothing.¹² This rarely bites a hit-and-run victim, since fleeing is strong evidence of the other driver's fault, but it's the rule your own insurer applies when it evaluates an uninsured-motorist claim.

If the injuries are serious or the fleeing driver is never identified, it's worth talking to a New Hampshire attorney who handles these claims. You can find one through our legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 264:25 (Conduct After Accident). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-25.htm

2. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 264:29 (Penalty). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-29.htm

3. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 651:2 (Sentences and Limitations). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LXII/651/651-2.htm

4. N.H. Admin. Code Saf-C 212.03 (Demerit Points). https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-hampshire/N-H-Admin-Code-SS-Saf-C-212.03

5. N.H. Admin. Code Saf-C 212.02 (Demerit Point Suspension Thresholds). https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-hampshire/N-H-Admin-Code-SS-Saf-C-212.02

6. New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, Insurance Requirements / SR-22 (Bureau of Financial Responsibility). https://www.dmv.nh.gov/tickets-accidents-or-restorations/insurance-requirements-sr-22

7. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 264:15 (Uninsured or Hit-and-Run Motor Vehicle Coverage). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-15.htm

8. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 264:20 (Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility, minimum limits). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-20.htm

9. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 264:16 (Medical Payments Coverage). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-16.htm

10. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 264:17 (Medical Payments; Subrogation). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-17.htm

11. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 508:4, I (Personal Actions). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LII/508/508-4.htm

12. New Hampshire Revised Statutes, RSA 507:7-d (Comparative Negligence). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LII/507/507-7-d.htm