Pedestrian accident settlement amounts in Vermont

If a car hit you while you were walking in Vermont, the size of your settlement comes down to a few concrete things: how much insurance is available, how the fault gets split, and whether you file in time. There's no fixed "average" payout for a pedestrian case, and anyone who quotes you a single number is guessing. What Vermont law fixes are the rules that set the ceiling and the floor on what you can collect.

Pedestrian crashes are uncommon here, and they're rarely minor. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety counted 6 pedestrian deaths in Vermont in 2024.¹ Most people struck by a vehicle survive, usually with broken bones or a head injury and a long recovery, and those are the cases where the rules below decide the outcome.

The three-year deadline

Vermont gives you three years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, under 12 V.S.A. § 512(4).² Miss that window and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case, however serious the injury. Damage to your property, like a phone or a bike destroyed when you were hit, runs on the same three-year clock under § 512(5).²

The deadline can pause in a narrow set of situations. If the injured person was a minor, lacked capacity, or was imprisoned when the crash happened, the clock doesn't start until that condition ends, under 12 V.S.A. § 551.³ And if the driver leaves Vermont before you can sue, the time they're gone doesn't count against you, under 12 V.S.A. § 552.⁴ Treat these as narrow exceptions rather than a plan you can count on. Cases get harder to settle, not easier, as the deadline gets close.

Who pays, and how much money is actually there

A pedestrian settlement can only be as large as the insurance and assets behind it. In Vermont that usually arrives in layers.

The first layer is the at-fault driver's liability policy. Vermont's legal minimum is 25/50/10: $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 when two or more people are hurt, and $10,000 for property damage, under 23 V.S.A. § 800.⁵ Plenty of drivers carry exactly that and nothing more. If your medical bills run past the policy limit, the driver's own assets become the next target, and an attorney will look for an umbrella policy on top.

The second layer is your own coverage. Vermont requires uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage on every auto policy unless you rejected it in writing, with a minimum of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per crash, under 23 V.S.A. § 941.⁶ This matters more than people expect, because UM/UIM follows you as a pedestrian. If the driver who hit you had no insurance or too little, your own policy can pay even though you were on foot. Vermont is a tort (at-fault) state, so there's no mandatory personal injury protection to cover your bills regardless of fault; medical payments coverage is an optional add-on, not a requirement.

Rideshare crashes are the exception to the low minimums. If an Uber or Lyft driver struck you while carrying a passenger or heading to a pickup, Vermont requires $1,000,000 in liability coverage and $1,000,000 in UM/UIM during that ride, plus $5,000 in medical payments coverage, under 23 V.S.A. § 750.⁷ The money available in that situation is far higher than in a typical private-car crash.

Fault is the biggest lever on the number

Vermont follows modified comparative negligence, and it's usually the single largest factor in what a pedestrian case is worth. You can recover as long as your share of the fault is "not greater than the causal total negligence" of the driver you're suing, under 12 V.S.A. § 1036.⁸ In practice that's a 51 percent bar: at 50 percent fault or less you still collect, and at 51 percent or more you get nothing. Whatever you recover is then reduced by your percentage, so a $200,000 case with 20 percent of the blame on you pays $160,000.

Most of that fault fight, in a pedestrian case, runs through Vermont's crosswalk rules. When traffic signals aren't operating, a driver has to yield to a pedestrian crossing in a crosswalk, and no driver may pass another vehicle that has stopped to let someone cross, under 23 V.S.A. § 1051.⁹ The same section says a pedestrian can't suddenly leave a curb and step into the path of a car that's too close to stop.⁹ Cross outside a crosswalk and the balance shifts: a pedestrian crossing anywhere other than a marked crosswalk has to yield to vehicles, under 23 V.S.A. § 1052.¹⁰ Adjusters lean on these sections to assign you a percentage of the blame. Being inside a marked crosswalk, with the signal, is often the difference between a full recovery and a sharply reduced one.

No damage caps, and when punitive damages apply

Vermont puts no cap on compensatory damages (medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering) or on punitive damages in an ordinary suit against a private driver. The one statutory cap applies only to claims against the State of Vermont itself, at $500,000 per person and $2,000,000 per occurrence, under 12 V.S.A. § 5601.¹¹ That ceiling comes up only if a state-owned vehicle or a state road-design decision was involved.

Punitive damages are on the table when a driver's conduct was especially reckless, and drunk driving is the standard example. If a drunk driver hit you, Vermont's dram shop law can add a second defendant with its own insurance: 7 V.S.A. § 501 lets an injured person sue a bar, restaurant, or store that sold alcohol to a minor or kept serving someone who was already apparently intoxicated.¹²

Distracted driving cuts the same way. Vermont bans all handheld device use behind the wheel as a primary offense, with civil penalties of $100 to $200 for a first violation and $250 to $500 for a second within any two-year period, under 23 V.S.A. § 1095b.¹³ A citation like that in the crash file is strong evidence of the driver's fault, which moves the comparative-negligence split in your favor.

Property, records, and getting the number right

If you were riding a bike or scooter, or a vehicle of yours was caught up in the crash, property damage is a separate claim, and a repaired vehicle's lost resale value is its own item worth pursuing; our Vermont diminished value guide covers that.

Two things move a Vermont pedestrian settlement more than anything else: the evidence of fault and the size of the policies within reach. Pull the official Vermont crash report early, hold onto every medical record, and photograph the crosswalk and signals if you can. Because Vermont's minimum policies are low and fault is negotiable, it's worth having a lawyer value the claim before you talk numbers with an adjuster. You can start with our Vermont legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Fatality Facts: State by State, Vermont (2024). https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state

2. 12 V.S.A. § 512 (limitation of actions; injuries to the person and to personal property). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/12/023/00512

3. 12 V.S.A. § 551 (tolling for minority, incapacity, or imprisonment). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/12/023/00551

4. 12 V.S.A. § 552 (tolling for a defendant's absence from the State). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/12/023/00552

5. 23 V.S.A. § 800 (maintenance of financial responsibility; minimum liability limits). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/23/011/00800

6. 23 V.S.A. § 941 (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/23/011/00941

7. 23 V.S.A. § 750 (transportation network company insurance requirements). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/23/010/00750

8. 12 V.S.A. § 1036 (comparative negligence). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/12/027/01036

9. 23 V.S.A. § 1051 (pedestrians' right of way in crosswalks). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/23/013/01051

10. 23 V.S.A. § 1052 (crossing except at crosswalks). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/23/013/01052

11. 12 V.S.A. § 5601 (tort claims against the State; liability caps). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/12/189/05601

12. 7 V.S.A. § 501 (unlawful sale of alcoholic beverages; civil action for damages). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/07/017/00501

13. 23 V.S.A. § 1095b (handheld use of portable electronic device prohibited). https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/23/013/01095b