South Bend Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

If a driver struck you while you were walking in South Bend, your claim turns on what that driver was required to do, and Indiana answers that by statute rather than by where your feet happened to be. A driver owes people on foot a due care duty that survives the right-of-way rules, the crossing signals place yield duties on drivers and not only on the people crossing, and an injury lawsuit generally has to be filed within two years. Blackburn Romey brings pedestrian claims in St. Joseph County; our statewide page on pedestrians hit by cars covers what is the same everywhere in Indiana.

How Blackburn Romey Handles a South Bend Pedestrian Injury Claim

Personal injury and wrongful death law is all we do, so a pedestrian claim in St. Joseph County is not a sideline for this firm. The counterpart in that claim is the driver’s insurer rather than the driver, and the insurer’s account of the crossing usually reaches the file first; the statutes below are what it has to be measured against.

Tom Blackburn has practiced personal injury law since 1985. A pedestrian claim in St. Joseph County sits alongside the rest of our South Bend personal injury work.

Who Is at Fault When a Driver Hits a Pedestrian in South Bend?

Fault turns on the duties Indiana places on the driver, and the first of them does not depend on where you were standing. That duty is IC 9-21-8-37. Whatever the right-of-way rules say, every driver must use due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian or a person propelling a human powered vehicle, giving an audible signal when necessary, and must exercise proper caution upon observing a child or an obviously confused, incapacitated, or intoxicated person. This duty applies even where the pedestrian was outside a crosswalk. So an insurer’s opening line that you were not in one does not answer the question that statute asks.

A second duty is in IC 9-21-8-24. Slowing down or stopping a vehicle, turning it from a direct course upon a highway, and changing from one traffic lane to another are each lawful only when the movement can be made with reasonable safety. Before any of those movements the driver must give notice of the intention. Notice means both an appropriate stop or turn signal and a clearly audible horn signal if any pedestrian may be affected by the movement.

So the movement that put the driver into your crossing had to be safe to make and signaled before it was made, and a driver who turned or changed lanes across a crossing without either is in breach of a second statute as well as the due care duty. That is worth pinning down early, because it is the part of the crossing an insurer’s account tends to leave out. Where the driver’s vehicle and its insurance become the center of the case, our South Bend car accident page covers that ground.

What If the Insurer Says You Were Partly at Fault?

Being partly at fault does not end an Indiana claim. Where the comparative fault chapter applies, your own share of fault reduces what you recover (IC 34-51-2-5), and only a share greater than everyone else’s combined bars the claim entirely (IC 34-51-2-6). Indiana compares fault in a claim against another driver, but not in a tort claim against a governmental entity or a public employee under Indiana’s Tort Claims Act, where the comparative fault chapter (IC 34-51-2-2) does not apply at all. So the insurer’s first allocation of blame is a position rather than a decision, and your own account of the crossing is what moves it.

How Long Do You Have to File a South Bend Pedestrian Claim?

Indiana gives you two years from when your claim arises to file an injury lawsuit, under IC 34-11-2-4. For most crash injuries that means two years from the day of the crash. Confirm your own date early rather than assuming it, because two years is the outside limit for filing and the accounts of people who were standing at the corner are easier to secure long before it runs out.

What If a City Bus or Another Government Vehicle Was Involved?

The two years is not the first deadline where a government defendant is involved. The deadline that comes first is a notice deadline, in IC 34-13-3-8 and IC 34-13-3-6. On a pedestrian claim that comes up easily: a city bus, a police or public works vehicle, a school corporation vehicle, or the public body responsible for the crossing itself.

Where an injury claim is a tort claim against a governmental defendant under Indiana’s Tort Claims Act, notice comes first: a claim against a political subdivision (a county, township, city, town, school corporation, state educational institution, city or county hospital, or another entity in the definition at IC 34-6-2.1-155) is barred unless notice is filed with its governing body (and, in the cases the statute specifies, with the Indiana political subdivision risk management commission) within 180 days after the loss occurs, and a claim against the state is barred unless notice is filed with the attorney general or the state agency involved within 270 days after the loss occurs.

The notice must be in writing and delivered in person or by registered or certified mail. Both windows are far shorter than the two-year lawsuit deadline, and the Act has narrow exceptions of its own — so if any government body may be involved, speak to a lawyer well before the notice window closes, and do not assume a missed window has ended the claim without asking.

Who Brings the Claim If a Pedestrian Is Killed?

Which route applies depends on whether the person who died was a child as Indiana defines one, and that definition is narrow: every part of it has to be met at once. A child is an unmarried person without dependents who was either under twenty, or under twenty-three and enrolled in a postsecondary educational institution or in a career and technical education school or program that is not a postsecondary program. So a married seventeen year-old is not a child for this purpose, and a twenty-one year-old still enrolled in college is. The definition also includes a fetus that has attained viability.

Where the person who died was not a child as Indiana defines one, the wrongful death lawsuit is brought by the personal representative of the person who died, and that action has to be filed within two years (IC 34-23-1-1).

Where the person who died was a child as Indiana defines one, IC 34-23-2-1 sets out who may bring the claim: the action may be maintained by the father and mother jointly, or by either of them if they name the other parent as a codefendant to answer as to his or her interest; or, after a divorce or dissolution of marriage, by the person to whom custody of the child was awarded; or by a guardian, for a protected person. If the person who was awarded custody has since died, a personal representative is appointed to maintain the action. A child’s claim is not one to leave sitting: Indiana’s two-year injury deadline is the one to work to, so ask a lawyer about your own dates rather than assuming you have longer.

What Do the Signals at a Crossing Actually Require?

A green light does not clear a driver’s path of people on foot. The rule is IC 9-21-3-7, and it binds every driver facing that green, turning or going straight through. Every driver facing that green must yield the right of way to other vehicles and to pedestrians lawfully within the intersection or an adjacent sidewalk at the time the signal is exhibited, and must yield the right of way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk and to other traffic lawfully using the intersection. A pedestrian facing a green signal may cross the roadway within a marked or unmarked crosswalk, unless a pedestrian control signal directs otherwise and except when the sole green signal is a turn arrow.

That is why “the light was green” is not, on its own, an answer from the driver who hit you, turning or not. Our explainer on whether pedestrians have the right of way in Indiana goes through the rest of the right-of-way rules.

What Does a Countdown Signal Mean If You Are Already Crossing?

It means the driver still has to yield to you, on the conditions IC 9-21-17-2 sets. On a flashing or steady “walk” a pedestrian facing the signal may cross in the direction of the signal, and a driver must yield the right of way to them. Where a countdown pedestrian signal indication is shown alongside a flashing “don’t walk”, a pedestrian who is able to reach the sidewalk or a safety island by the time the steady “don’t walk” appears may cross, and a driver must yield the right of way to them too.

Once the “don’t walk” is steady, the statute tells a pedestrian who has partly crossed to continue to a sidewalk or safety island, and states no driver yield duty for that phase. So a running countdown is not the concession an insurer may treat it as: while the countdown was still running alongside a flashing “don’t walk”, a pedestrian who was able to reach the sidewalk or a safety island by the time the steady “don’t walk” appeared is one the driver was required to yield to.

Can a Driver Pass a Car That Has Stopped at a Crosswalk?

No. When one car has stopped at a marked crosswalk, or at an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to let someone cross, the driver coming up behind may not overtake and pass it, under IC 9-21-17-6. That is the collision where one vehicle stops and a second comes past it into the crossing, and it means the driver who hit you can be in breach of a statute of their own. It also makes the stopped driver a witness worth identifying early.

What If the Crossing Had No Signal?

Then a different section allocates the right of way, and it can put the duty to yield on the driver: IC 9-21-8-36. Where a crossing has no traffic control signal in place, or the signal is not in operation, a driver must yield the right of way, slowing down or stopping if necessary to yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk when the pedestrian is on the half of the roadway the vehicle is traveling on, or is approaching closely from the other half. “Crosswalk” is not limited to painted lines: at an intersection it also covers the unmarked area between the sidewalk lines on opposite sides of the road (IC 9-13-2-40).

Two limits come with that rule. Where a signal is in place and working, the signal sections above govern instead, and the section carries its own exceptions for a crossing where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead crossing has been provided and for a pedestrian hybrid beacon displaying no indication. So it is not a general rule that drivers must yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

How Often Are Pedestrians Involved in St. Joseph County Crashes?

In 2023, 110 pedestrians were involved in St. Joseph County collisions that produced at least one recorded injury: 6 were killed and 101 suffered non-fatal injuries, per the Indiana County Profiles 2023. That table leaves out property damage only collisions, so it is not a count of every pedestrian struck in the county. There is no municipal pedestrian breakdown for South Bend either, so the county is the smallest unit this crash type can honestly be counted in.

Statewide, 1,613 pedestrians were involved in Indiana collisions in 2024. All but 106 of them were hurt or killed, and 111 were killed, according to Indiana Crash Facts 2024. The same report counts how many of those pedestrians the collision was attributed to. About two-thirds of the 1,613, or 1,082 of them, were not the party it was attributed to. Among those crossing away from an intersection, 190 of the 317 involved were the party it was attributed to. That attribution is a crash report field recorded by the reporting officer and is not a legal finding of fault, so it settles nothing about a particular claim.

What the figures are good for is scale, not blame. A pedestrian claim in St. Joseph County is not an unusual thing to bring, and nothing in these tables says who was at fault in yours. That is answered by the driver duties above, applied to what happened at your own crossing, which is why the account you give of it early matters more than any of these numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions About South Bend Pedestrian Accident Claims

Talk to a South Bend Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

A free confidential consultation is the place to start: we will look at what happened and give you a straight answer about whether there is a claim worth bringing. Blackburn Romey brings pedestrian claims in St. Joseph County, and what the driver was required to do at the crossing is where that conversation begins. Bring your dates with you, because the deadlines are what all of it is worked against, and where a government body is involved a notice deadline runs long before the two-year filing deadline does. Call 833-366-6595 or contact us to arrange the consultation. If you were on a bicycle rather than on foot, our South Bend bicycle accident page covers that claim instead.