California Police Chase Injury Claims for Bystanders and Passengers

If a driver fleeing the police hit you in California, the fleeing driver is responsible for your injuries, and your own uninsured motorist coverage can pay when that driver has no insurance.

The police agency is harder to reach.

Vehicle Code § 17004.7 makes an agency immune for the fleeing driver's crash if it adopted a pursuit policy meeting state standards and trains its officers on it every year.

That immunity does not cover a crash caused by the patrol car's own negligent driving.

Any claim against a city, county, or the CHP must be filed in writing within six months.

In 2023, police pursuits in California injured 473 people who had nothing to do with the chase.

If a pursuit ended in your car or your crosswalk, call (888) 713-6653 with questions about who can be held responsible.

The person who chose to run from the police is the one whose negligence caused the crash, and every pursuit claim starts there. Speeding, running red lights, and driving on the wrong side of the road to escape an officer are each a breach of the duty of care owed to everyone else on the road.

The criminal case can help the civil one. Evading an officer and causing serious bodily injury is a felony under Vehicle Code § 2800.3, punishable by three, five, or seven years in state prison, and causing a death carries four, six, or ten years.^[1] A conviction can include a restitution order under Penal Code § 1202.4 for your medical bills and lost wages, and the facts proved in that case support liability in yours.

The difficulty is collecting. Drivers who flee are often uninsured, driving a stolen car, or carrying a minimum policy, which in California is now $30,000 per person for policies issued or renewed since January 1, 2025. A serious injury outruns that figure quickly.

Identifying every policy that could apply, including the car owner's and your own, is what decides how much of the loss can be paid.

California lets a police agency trade a written pursuit policy for immunity. Under Vehicle Code § 17004.7, an agency is not liable for injuries caused by a collision involving a fleeing driver if it "adopts and promulgates a written policy on, and provides regular and periodic training on an annual basis for, vehicular pursuits" that meet the statute's standards.^[2] The Legislature rewrote the section in 2005 through SB 719, after a court of appeal called the older version a "get out of liability free card."

The certification rule is weaker than it sounds. In Ramirez v. City of Gardena (2018), the California Supreme Court held that the policy must require the written certification, but that 100 percent compliance is not a prerequisite to immunity. The court left open how much failure to implement the policy would defeat it.

The law is still moving. In March 2026 the Supreme Court agreed to review Gilliland v. City of Pleasanton, which asks whether an agency's own definition of "pursuit" controls whether a driver was being pursued at all, and a decision could change which crashes the immunity reaches.

Families are often told early that nobody can sue the police over a chase. The immunity is real, but it belongs only to agencies that did the paperwork and the training the statute demands, and that is something to check rather than assume.

When the patrol car itself causes the collision, the claim is against the agency for its employee's driving. Section 17001 makes a public entity liable for injuries "proximately caused by a negligent or wrongful act or omission in the operation of any motor vehicle by an employee" acting within the scope of employment.^[3]

A separate statute, § 17004, protects the individual officer from personal liability while driving an emergency vehicle in pursuit. It does not protect the city or county that employs the officer.

• A patrol car running a red light at an intersection during a chase and striking a driver crossing on green
• A pursuing unit losing control and leaving the road into a pedestrian or a parked car
• A collision at the end of a chase when officers box in or ram the suspect and another driver is caught in it

Which vehicle struck you, the suspect's or the officer's, decides which statute governs the claim, and the dashcam and crash reconstruction usually answer it.

Every California law enforcement agency reports its pursuits to the California Highway Patrol, which sends a statewide summary to the Legislature each year. The most recent report, published in July 2024, covers 2023.^[4]

Los Angeles saw the sharpest rise the following year. According to LAPD data reported by NBC4 and ABC7, the department's pursuits reached 1,116 in 2024, up 45 percent, and those chases injured 114 uninvolved people and killed three, compared with 89 bystanders injured in 2023.

Nearly three in four pursuits statewide ended within five miles, which is why so many of these crashes happen on ordinary city streets near where the chase began.

When the fleeing driver had no insurance, your own auto policy's uninsured motorist coverage steps into that driver's shoes. Every California auto policy includes it unless you rejected it in writing, and it also covers you as a passenger, a pedestrian, or a cyclist.

A chase that ends with the suspect escaping on foot or driving off is treated as a hit-and-run. That claim requires physical contact between the fleeing car and you or your vehicle, a report to police or the CHP within 24 hours, and a sworn statement to your insurer within 30 days. Our page on uninsured motorist claims after a California hit-and-run walks through each requirement.

If the suspect is caught but carries only a minimum policy, underinsured motorist coverage can pay the difference up to your own limits.

Within two years of the crash, an uninsured motorist claim must be settled, sued on, or taken to arbitration by written demand, or it can be lost.

Most of the evidence in a pursuit case sits with the police. It shows how fast the chase moved, who authorized it, and whether anyone considered ending it.

• Dashcam and body-worn camera video from every pursuing unit and any helicopter
• Radio recordings and dispatch logs showing supervisor approval and the reasons given for continuing
• The written pursuit policy in effect that day, with the training records and officer certifications
• The pursuit report the agency filed with the CHP, and its internal review of the chase
• The traffic collision report and any reconstruction

Witnesses and nearby businesses matter too, because private security cameras often capture the moment of impact from an angle no patrol car had.

Agencies keep recordings on retention schedules, so a written preservation demand sent soon after the crash protects video that might otherwise be overwritten.

A pursuit injury claim is worth the full value of your losses, but what can be collected depends on which sources of payment are available.

• Economic losses: medical bills, future treatment, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity
• Non-economic losses: pain, emotional distress, scarring, and loss of enjoyment of life, with no cap in an auto case
• Sources of payment: the fleeing driver's policy, the vehicle owner's policy, your uninsured and underinsured coverage, criminal restitution, and the agency when immunity does not apply

Punitive damages are not available against a public entity under Government Code § 818, though a fleeing driver's recklessness can support them in the claim against that driver.

For a bystander with a serious injury, the size of the recovery usually comes down to whether the agency's immunity holds and how much uninsured motorist coverage you carry.