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

Getting hit by a driver who then takes off is one of the worst ways a Wyoming crash can go. You're hurt or your car's wrecked, and the person responsible is a set of taillights shrinking down the highway. What Wyoming law demands of that driver, what it does to them if they're caught, and how you get paid when they're not, all come down to a specific chain of statutes. Here's how they actually read in 2026.

What Wyoming requires a driver to do after a crash

Wyoming builds the duty to stay at a crash from a run of statutes in Title 31, Chapter 5, Article 11. If an accident injures or kills someone, the driver has to immediately stop at the scene, or as close to it as possible, and stay there until they've met every requirement the law sets.¹ If the crash only damaged another vehicle or property that someone was driving or attending, the same stop-and-stay rule applies.²

Stopping isn't the end of it. Under Wyo. Stat. 31-5-1103, the driver has to give their name, address, and vehicle registration number, and, if asked and if they have it on them, show their driver's license to the other driver, to anyone injured, and to any officer at the scene. If someone is hurt, the driver also has to render reasonable assistance, which the statute defines as carrying the injured person, or arranging to carry them, to a doctor or hospital when treatment is obviously needed or the injured person asks for it.³

Two more rules cover the cases people forget. Clip a parked car or a mailbox with nobody around, and Wyo. Stat. 31-5-1104 still makes you stop and either find the owner or leave a written note with your name, address, and registration somewhere obvious on the property.⁴ Separately, a driver has to notify police right away by the quickest means available, the local department inside a town, or the nearest highway patrol office or county sheriff outside one, whenever the crash injures or kills anyone or leaves a vehicle too disabled to drive safely.⁵ The trigger there is injury, death, or a disabled vehicle. It isn't a dollar amount, so there's no repair-cost threshold you have to cross before the duty kicks in.

The penalties for leaving

Here's where a lot of online summaries get Wyoming wrong, so read this part closely.

Leaving the scene of a crash that hurt or killed someone is a misdemeanor in Wyoming, punishable by up to one year in jail, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.¹ That's the current ceiling. In the 2024 budget session, lawmakers introduced House Bill 149, which would have made a hit-and-run involving serious bodily injury or death a felony carrying up to five years and a $50,000 fine. It failed introduction on February 14, 2024, by a vote of 28 to 33, and never became law.⁶ So if you read somewhere that fleeing an injury crash is a Wyoming felony, that source is describing a bill that died, not the statute in force.

Leaving a property-damage crash is also a misdemeanor.² Because that section sets no fine of its own, the general Title 31 penalty fills the gap: up to $200 for a first offense, up to $300 for a second within a year, and up to $500 plus as much as six months in jail for a third.⁷

One duty is gone entirely. Wyoming used to make drivers file their own written crash report, but the legislature repealed that in 2013. Now only the investigating officer files a report, and only when the crash caused injury, death, or a disabled vehicle, sending it to the state within ten days.⁸

If you're the one who got hit

Call police first and let them build that report. You've got a real stake in the crash being on the record, and in Wyoming it's the officer who files it.⁸ If you can do it safely, write down whatever you can about the other car before it's gone: a partial plate, the make and color, the direction it went, the time of day. One or two digits of a plate can be enough for an officer to track down the driver.

Once a report exists, you can request a copy from the Wyoming Department of Transportation. The steps and fees live on our Wyoming crash report page. If your car took the hit, the damage probably cut its resale value too, which is a separate claim covered on our Wyoming diminished value page.

Getting paid when the driver is never found

This is the part that matters most, because plenty of hit-and-run drivers are never identified. Wyoming is an at-fault state with no no-fault or PIP system, so ordinarily you collect from the person who hit you.⁹ When that person is a ghost, your own uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is what steps in.

Wyoming law requires every auto liability policy issued in the state to include UM coverage unless you rejected it in writing.¹⁰ Unless you actively signed it away, you probably have it. UM is built for this situation: it lets you recover from your own insurer for injuries caused by a driver who has no insurance, and, in practice, by one who can't be found.

There's a wrinkle worth knowing. Wyoming's statute defining an "uninsured motor vehicle" only expressly reaches vehicles whose insurer went insolvent. It doesn't spell out hit-and-run or phantom vehicles at all.¹¹ So whether an unidentified driver counts as "uninsured" on your claim comes down to your own policy's wording, which usually does cover hit-and-run vehicles, sometimes only when there was physical contact. Pull out your declarations page and read it, or have someone read it with you.

Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage is a different story. Wyoming doesn't require it at all, not even as an offer, so it's a purely optional add-on. That gap hurts when a hit-and-run driver is caught but carries only the state minimum, which is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for injuries, plus $20,000 for property damage.¹² Serious injuries blow past those numbers quickly, and without UIM there may be little behind them.

The clock, and your share of fault

You have four years from the date of the crash to file an injury lawsuit in Wyoming, and the same four years for property damage.¹³ That sounds like plenty, but a UM claim carries its own contract deadlines that can be far shorter, so your real clock is often set by your policy, not the statute.

Wyoming also runs on modified comparative fault. You can recover as long as you aren't more at fault than the driver who hit you, meaning 50 percent or less, and your award drops by your share.¹⁴ In a clean hit-and-run, where the other driver blew a light and fled, your fault is usually zero. Even so, the insurer handling a UM claim can still argue you had a chance to avoid the crash, because on that claim your own insurer stands in the shoes of the driver who left. And since Wyoming has no PIP, nothing automatically pays your medical bills up front; the most you might have is optional medical payments (MedPay) coverage, if you bought it.⁹

If your injuries are real or the UM claim turns into a fight, that's the point to bring in a lawyer who handles Wyoming crashes. You can find one through our legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1101, Duty to stop vehicle where accident involves death or personal injuries; penalties. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-11/section-31-5-1101/

2. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1102, Duty to stop vehicle where accident involves damage to attended vehicle or property; penalty. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-11/section-31-5-1102/

3. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1103, Duty to give information and render aid. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-11/section-31-5-1103/

4. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1104, Duty upon colliding with unattended vehicle or property. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-11/section-31-5-1104/

5. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1105, Notice required of driver. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-11/section-31-5-1105/

6. Wyoming Legislature, HB0149 (2024), "Hit and run-responsibility and penalties" - Failed Introduction, Feb. 14, 2024 (28-33). https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2024/HB0149

7. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1201, Violation of provisions to constitute misdemeanor; penalties. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-12/section-31-5-1201/

8. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-1106, Written reports required of police officers. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-11/section-31-5-1106/

9. Wyoming Department of Insurance, auto insurance consumer information. https://doi.wyo.gov/consumers/insurance-topics

10. Wyo. Stat. § 31-10-101, Uninsured motorist coverage required; rejection. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-10/section-31-10-101/

11. Wyo. Stat. § 31-10-102, Scope of term "uninsured motor vehicle". https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-10/section-31-10-102/

12. Wyo. Stat. § 31-9-405, Liability policy defined; required coverage (25/50/20 minimums). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-9/article-4/section-31-9-405/

13. Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105, Actions other than recovery of real property (four-year limits). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-1/chapter-3/section-1-3-105/

14. Wyo. Stat. § 1-1-109, Comparative fault. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-1/chapter-1/section-1-1-109/