If a car hit you while you were walking in Wyoming, the hardest question to answer early on is usually the same one: what is the case worth? There is no chart, no state formula, and no average payout that means anything for your specific injuries. What a Wyoming pedestrian claim settles for depends on your medical bills, your lost income, how long the injury lasts, and a short list of state rules that decide how much money is actually reachable. Those rules are what this page is about.
Wyoming does not cap what you can recover
Some states put a legal ceiling on injury awards. Wyoming does the opposite. The state constitution forbids the legislature from limiting damages for injury or death, so there is no statutory cap on your medical costs, lost wages, or pain and suffering in an ordinary crash case.1 The one carve-out lets lawmakers cap noneconomic damages in medical malpractice suits, and that exception does not reach a pedestrian claim.1 Punitive damages are uncapped for the same constitutional reason.1
So the ceiling on a Wyoming pedestrian settlement is almost never the law. It is the money behind the driver.
The number that usually controls is the insurance limit
Wyoming requires every driver to carry at least $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 per crash when two or more people are hurt, and $20,000 for property damage. That is written as 25/50/20.2 A large share of drivers carry exactly that minimum. If the person who hit you has a state-minimum policy and no real assets to pursue, $25,000 is often the practical top of your recovery from their insurer, no matter how the law values your injuries.
That gap between what a case is worth and what is actually collectible is the single biggest factor in Wyoming pedestrian settlement amounts. It is also why the next section matters so much.
Your own auto policy can pay even though you were walking
You do not need to have been in a car to use car insurance. Two coverages on your own policy can reach you as a pedestrian.
Uninsured motorist coverage (UM) has to be included in every Wyoming auto liability policy unless you rejected it in writing.3 It pays when the driver who hit you had no insurance or fled the scene, which is a real risk in a hit-and-run. Underinsured motorist coverage (UIM), which fills the gap when the at-fault driver's limits are too low, works differently here: the state does not require it and does not even require insurers to offer it, so it is a purely optional add-on you have to have bought.3 If the driver carried only $25,000 and your hospital bill is larger, UIM on your own policy is often the only place the extra money comes from.
Wyoming also has no personal injury protection (PIP). It is a pure at-fault state with no no-fault system, so there is no first-party PIP filing deadline to miss.4 What insurers offer instead is optional Medical Payments Coverage (MedPay), and the Wyoming Department of Insurance notes that this coverage often extends to pedestrians.4 If you bought it, it pays your medical bills regardless of who was at fault, which can keep you afloat while the liability claim is negotiated.
Fault is where Wyoming pedestrian cases are won or lost
Wyoming follows modified comparative fault. You can recover as long as you were not more than 50 percent at fault. Cross that line, to 51 percent or more, and you recover nothing.5 Below it, your award is reduced by your share. If a jury values your claim at $100,000 but finds you 30 percent responsible, you collect $70,000.5
Insurers know this, so they push your percentage up hard, and where you were walking decides most of that fight. When a signal is not present or not working, a Wyoming driver has to yield to a pedestrian who is in or entering a crosswalk.6 A driver also cannot pass another car that has stopped at a crosswalk to let someone cross, a rule aimed squarely at the crashes where a stopped car hides a walker from the next lane.6 The flip side is the dart-out rule: you cannot suddenly leave a curb and step into the path of a car that is too close to stop, and that is the fault argument insurers reach for first.6 Where there is no sidewalk, the law expects you to walk on the left shoulder facing traffic, and any pedestrian on the roadway yields to vehicles.7 Walking outside a crosswalk does not end your claim, but it hands the insurer something to argue about, and that argument comes straight out of your settlement.
Wyoming winters feed the fault fight. Icy shoulders and early darkness change what a driver can see and do, but a driver who could not stop on packed snow does not get a free pass if they were not watching the road. Distracted driving is its own violation. Reading or sending a text on a handheld device while driving is banned and enforced as a primary offense.8
Drunk drivers can add punitive damages
If the driver who hit you was impaired, the value math changes. Wyoming allows punitive damages against a drunk driver when there is clear and convincing proof of willful and wanton misconduct, a rule the Wyoming Supreme Court laid down in Danculovich v. Brown in 1979.9 Because the constitution bars caps, that punitive award has no statutory limit.1
Going after the bar or party host who served the alcohol is much harder. Wyoming's dram shop statute gives anyone who legally provides alcohol immunity from liability for what the drinker later does, and that immunity is lost only if the alcohol went to a minor or was served in violation of the liquor code.10 For most cases involving an adult driver, the claim stays against the driver and the driver's insurance.
You have four years, but do not wait
The deadline to file a Wyoming injury lawsuit is four years from the date of the crash.11 Claims for damage to personal property carry the same four-year limit under the same statute.11 Four years sounds like plenty, right up until it isn't. Evidence disappears, the shoulder gets repaved, and witnesses forget. The official crash report is usually the backbone of a pedestrian claim, and you can request yours through our Wyoming crash report page. If a vehicle of yours was involved and lost resale value, that is a separate claim covered on our Wyoming diminished value page.
What Wyoming's pedestrian numbers actually look like
Wyoming sees few pedestrian crashes compared with big states, and that cuts both ways: fewer cases, but each one tends to be serious because rural speeds are high. In 2024 the state recorded 4 pedestrian deaths out of 107 total traffic fatalities.12 Its pedestrian death rate, around 0.68 per 100,000 residents, is one of the lowest in the country.13 Injuries are far more common than deaths, and WYDOT planning data has put annual pedestrian injuries in the range of roughly 65 to 101.14 WYDOT publishes the underlying counts each year in its Report on Traffic Crashes.15
None of that tells you what your own case is worth. It tells you the terrain: a small number of high-stakes claims, usually against a driver with modest coverage, in a state that will not cap your recovery but will let the insurer argue about fault. A local attorney can look at the police report, the coverage available on both sides, and the fault picture and give you a real range. You can find one through our Wyoming legal directory.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Wyoming Constitution, Article 10, Section 4 (legislature may not cap damages for injury or death; narrow medical-malpractice noneconomic exception). https://sos.wyo.gov/Forms/Publications/WYConstitution.pdf
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Wyoming Statutes 31-9-405, "Liability policy" defined; required coverage (25/50/20 minimum limits). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-9/article-4/section-31-9-405/
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Wyoming Statutes 31-10-101, Uninsured motorist coverage (required unless rejected; UIM not mandated). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-10/section-31-10-101/
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Wyoming Department of Insurance, auto insurance consumer topics (optional Medical Payments Coverage often extends to pedestrians; no PIP). https://doi.wyo.gov/consumers/insurance-topics
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Wyoming Statutes 1-1-109, Comparative fault (recovery barred above 50 percent; damages diminished in proportion to claimant's fault). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-1/chapter-1/section-1-1-109/
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Wyoming Statutes 31-5-602, Right-of-way in crosswalks. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-6/section-31-5-602/
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Wyoming Statutes 31-5-605, Walking along roadways or highways. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-6/section-31-5-605/
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Wyoming Statutes 31-5-237, use of a handheld electronic device to text while driving. https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-31/chapter-5/article-2/section-31-5-237/
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Danculovich v. Brown, 593 P.2d 187 (Wyo. 1979). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1134542/danculovich-v-brown/
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Wyoming Statutes 12-8-301, immunity for persons who legally furnish alcohol (dram shop). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-12/chapter-8/article-3/section-12-8-301/
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Wyoming Statutes 1-3-105, Actions other than recovery of real property (four-year limit for injury to the person and to personal property). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-1/chapter-3/section-1-3-105/
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Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Fatality Facts 2024: State by state (Wyoming pedestrian and total traffic deaths). https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state
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NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System, state pedestrian fatality rates. https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/states/statespedestrians.aspx
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Wyoming Department of Transportation, Wyoming Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (annual pedestrian injury range). https://www.dot.state.wy.us/files/live/sites/wydot/files/shared/Highway_Safety/Pedestrian%20Bicycle/WY%20Bicycle%20and%20Pedestrian%20Transportation%20Plan_2016.pdf
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Wyoming Department of Transportation, Report on Traffic Crashes (annual crash data publications). https://dot.state.wy.us/home/dot_safety/crash-data/publications.html