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

Someone hit your car and drove off. Maybe you caught a partial plate, maybe you got nothing at all. Either way, Tennessee law treats what that driver did as a crime, and it hands you a few specific tools to recover, most of which run on short clocks. This page sticks to what's true in Tennessee: the duties the fleeing driver broke, the penalties they're facing, and the moves that protect your own claim.

What the other driver was required to do

Tennessee doesn't leave "what counts as a hit-and-run" to interpretation. A driver in any crash that injures or kills someone must stop at the scene, or as close to it as possible, and stay there until they've done what the law requires.¹ That same stop-and-stay duty applies to a crash that only damages another vehicle or property.²

Staying isn't enough by itself. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-103, the driver has to give their name, address, and vehicle registration number, show their driver license to the other people involved, and render reasonable assistance to anyone who's hurt, including arranging a ride to a doctor or hospital when it's needed.³ Those duties apply on public highways and also on the premises of shopping centers, apartment complexes, and trailer parks, so a parking-lot hit-and-run counts.³

Clipped a parked car with no one in it? There's a rule for that. The driver has to find and notify the owner, or leave a note in a conspicuous place on the vehicle with their name, address, insurance information, and a statement of what happened.⁴

There's also a reporting duty. Anyone in a crash that hurts someone, kills someone, or does at least $50 in property damage must notify police right away by the quickest means available: local police inside a city, or the county sheriff or Highway Patrol everywhere else.⁵ Fifty dollars is a low bar, so nearly every real collision trips it.

The criminal penalties for leaving

How serious the charge is turns on what the crash caused.

For property damage alone, leaving is a Class B misdemeanor when the damage to the other person's vehicle or property is $1,500 or less, and a Class A misdemeanor when it tops $1,500.² A Class B misdemeanor carries up to six months in jail; a Class A carries up to 11 months and 29 days.⁶ Because even a minor modern collision often runs past $1,500 in repairs, plenty of property-only hit-and-runs land in the Class A range.

Leaving the scene of a crash that injured someone is a Class A misdemeanor, again up to 11 months and 29 days.¹⁶

Death is where Tennessee turned the screws. Failing to stop when the driver knew or reasonably should have known that someone died is a Class E felony, punishable by one to six years.¹⁶ As of July 1, 2026, a new law raised the floor. The James Bardsley, Jr. Life Protection Act, enacted as Public Chapter 1072, requires a minimum of one year of confinement served at 100%, plus a fine of $5,000 to $10,000, for a fatal leaving-the-scene offense committed on or after that date.⁷ The felony class didn't change. What changed is that the mandatory year can no longer be probated away.

A conviction also costs the driver their license. Failing to stop and render aid in a crash that killed or injured someone is a mandatory revocation offense in Tennessee, so the license goes even on a first offense of this type.⁸

What to do if a driver hit you and fled

Report it immediately. The same $50 notice rule that binds the other driver works in your favor, so call 911 or local police from the scene.⁵ A police record made close in time is the backbone of a hit-and-run insurance claim, and it starts the paper trail if the driver is later identified. Before you leave, grab anything that fixes the other car's existence: a witness willing to give a name, a nearby business or doorbell camera, paint transfer or debris. Tennessee's uninsured-motorist rules reward that kind of corroboration, as the next point explains. You can pull the official report afterward from Tennessee crash reports.

Then lean on your own uninsured motorist coverage. This is the part a lot of Tennessee drivers don't realize they already carry. A hit-and-run driver is treated as an uninsured motorist, so your UM coverage can pay for your injuries and losses even though the other driver is gone.⁹ Insurers have to offer you UM coverage equal to your bodily-injury liability limits, and you only have less if you rejected or reduced it in writing.⁹ Since Tennessee's minimum liability limits are 25/50/25, many drivers are carrying at least $25,000 per person in UM without knowing it.¹⁰

There's a catch built specifically for unidentified drivers. To collect UM benefits when you don't know who hit you, Tennessee requires either actual physical contact between the unknown vehicle and you or your car, or proof that the unknown vehicle existed by clear and convincing evidence from someone other than the people riding in your own car.⁹ A neutral witness or camera footage does that work. A "phantom" run-off with no contact and no independent witness is exactly the scenario the statute is written to keep out.

Watch the deadlines, because Tennessee's are short. A personal-injury lawsuit generally has to be filed within one year of the crash under Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104.¹¹ A claim for damage to your vehicle gets three years under § 28-3-105.¹² If the driver is caught and criminally prosecuted, the injury deadline can stretch to two years, but don't build your plans around that; treat one year as the real limit.¹¹

Know how fault works if an adjuster pushes back. Tennessee uses modified comparative fault from McIntyre v. Balentine: you can recover as long as you're less than 50% at fault, and your award shrinks by your share.¹³ In a hit-and-run you're usually the driver who stayed, but a UM insurer may still try to pin some blame on you to trim the payout, which is another reason the report and any witnesses matter.

If your car was fixed but now carries a lower resale value, that loss is worth pursuing on its own; see Tennessee diminished value. And if an insurer is stonewalling or you're deciding whether to file suit, you can find a Tennessee attorney through the legal directory.

Two things carry most of the weight here. The driver who left broke a defined set of Tennessee duties that can mean jail and a revoked license, and your own UM coverage paired with a fast police report is usually what actually gets you paid. Move on both while the trail is still warm.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-101 (accidents involving death or personal injury; duty to stop). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-10/part-1/section-55-10-101/

2. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-102 (accidents involving damage to vehicle; $1,500 threshold). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-10/part-1/section-55-10-102/

3. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-103 (duty to give information and render aid). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-10/part-1/section-55-10-103/

4. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-104 (duty upon striking unattended vehicles). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-10/part-1/section-55-10-104/

5. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-106 (immediate notice of accident). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-10/part-1/section-55-10-106/

6. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-111 (authorized terms of imprisonment and fines for felonies and misdemeanors). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-40/chapter-35/part-1/section-40-35-111/

7. James Bardsley, Jr. Life Protection Act, 2026 Tenn. Pub. Ch. 1072 (HB1967), effective July 1, 2026. Tennessee General Assembly. https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1967&GA=114

8. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-501 (mandatory revocation of licenses). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-50/part-5/section-55-50-501/

9. Tenn. Code Ann. § 56-7-1201 (uninsured motor vehicle coverage; unknown-owner corroboration requirement). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-56/chapter-7/part-12/section-56-7-1201/

10. Tennessee Department of Revenue, Drive Insured Tennessee (financial responsibility; minimum liability limits). https://www.tn.gov/revenue/title-and-registration/drive-insured-tennessee/why-you-should-have-insurance.html

11. Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104 (one-year personal-injury limitation). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-3/part-1/section-28-3-104/

12. Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-105 (three-year limitation for injury to personal property). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-3/part-1/section-28-3-105/

13. McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn. 1992) (modified comparative fault). https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/supreme-court/1992/833-s-w-2d-52-2.html