ICD-10 Code V03.10XA: Pedestrian Hit by Car in Texas Settlement Value

ICD-10-CM external-cause codes (the V chapter, V00 through V99) describe how a person was injured during transport. They are not diagnoses; they are circumstance codes attached to the actual injury codes. Reading V03.10XA character by character:

• V03: Pedestrian injured in collision with car, pickup truck, or van (the category).
• .1: Pedestrian on foot (the .0 variant is pedestrian on a conveyance like skates, a skateboard, or a scooter).
• 0: Traffic accident (the .00 variant is the non-traffic version, used for parking lots, driveways, and other non-public-roadway locations).
• XA: X is the placeholder so the 7th character lands in position 7; A is the encounter character meaning initial encounter (first visit for active treatment).

Related codes you may see on the same Texas chart: V03.00XA (pedestrian on conveyance in traffic), V03.11XA / V03.13XA / V03.19XA (specific subtypes by circumstance), V01-V02 and V04-V09 (pedestrian injured in collision with other vehicle types).

Four patterns account for the bulk of Texas pedestrian-versus-passenger-vehicle crashes. Each has a characteristic injury profile and a characteristic comparative-fault argument under the 51% bar.

Pedestrian impacts produce a characteristic three-stage injury pattern that controls case value far more than the V-code itself. Recognizing the pattern in ER documentation helps adjusters and counsel calibrate severity early:

• Stage 1 (bumper level): tibia and fibula fractures (S82), femur (S72), knee ligament damage (S83). The classic pedestrian “bumper fracture” is a transverse tibia fracture at bumper height, typically 18 to 22 inches above ground for a sedan and 26 to 32 inches for a pickup truck. The bumper height itself is forensic evidence of which vehicle struck the pedestrian.
• Stage 2 (hood / windshield): pelvic fractures (S32), rib and chest (S22), upper extremity (S52 / S62), and primary TBI (S06.0X through S06.9X). The pedestrian rotates onto the hood or windshield. Pickup and SUV impacts skip the hood rotation and produce more severe primary head injury.
• Stage 3 (ground impact): secondary TBI from striking the pavement. The third impact is often more severe than the first two and produces the worst-prognosis injuries in adult pedestrian cases. Texas trauma centers (Memorial Hermann Houston, Parkland Dallas, University Hospital San Antonio) document Stage 3 carefully because it controls long-term cognitive outcomes.

See the TBI settlement guide and the broken bone settlement guide for value modeling on the paired S-codes.

Texas pedestrian cases pair V03.10XA with multiple S-codes spanning several body regions. Multi-region pairing raises severity scoring inside Colossus more than the V-code itself. Common pairings:

• Tibia and femur fractures (S82, S72): the Stage 1 bumper fractures, classic in adult pedestrian-vs-passenger-vehicle cases.
• Knee ligaments (S83): ACL, MCL, PCL, and meniscal injuries from lateral bumper strike.
• Pelvic and lumbar fractures (S32): Stage 2 hood/windshield impact; pelvic ring fractures are common in higher-speed impacts.
• Rib and thoracic spine fractures (S22): Stage 2 torso impact; often produces pneumothorax and rib flail in severe cases.
• Traumatic brain injury (S06.0X through S06.9X): Stage 2 and Stage 3 head impact; the single most value-driving pairing. See the TBI settlement guide.
• Upper extremity (S52 / S62): bracing fractures during the rotation onto the hood.

The dollar value of the case is driven by which S-codes pair with V03.10XA and how severely each is graded. Texas pedestrian cases that document the full bumper-triangle pattern (S82 + S32 + S06) typically settle 40 to 70 percent higher than cases that document only the most visible injury.

Source: SetCalc analysis of Texas court records and confirmed settlements, 2024 to 2026. $5.2M Dallas County garbage-truck pedestrian settlement (Weinstein Law, 2026) is a recent commercial-vehicle benchmark. See the verdict and settlement database for case-by-case comparables.

V03 (pedestrian struck by vehicle) sits at the top of the V-chapter severity baseline because the kinematic mismatch is the most extreme of any V-code category. Adjusters and severity-evaluation systems (Colossus, Liability Navigator, Claim IQ) treat V03.10XA differently from V43 (car-vs-car) or even V44 (car-vs-truck) in three ways:

• Severity baseline is higher. The same S06.0X concussion paired with V03.10XA scores higher than paired with V43.5XXA because Colossus models pedestrian energy transfer as worse for the human body than car-vs-car.
• Multi-region pairing is expected. V03.10XA cases routinely log three or four S-codes (legs, pelvis, torso, head) reflecting the bumper-triangle pattern. Cases that show only one S-code with V03.10XA on the chart are sometimes under-documented; the demand package should expand the documentation, not accept the under-coded picture.
• Comparative-fault arguments are sharper. Defense will aggressively push fault allocation based on signal compliance, crosswalk presence, intoxication, and clothing visibility. Under the 51% bar, any allocation above 50 percent ends the case, so the fault percentage is the central battle in Texas pedestrian cases more than in any other V-code category.

Read more in the Colossus settlement-software guide.

• Statute of limitations: two years (CPRC Section 16.003). Six-month TTCA notice if a Texas governmental entity is involved (Gov Code Section 101.101); TTCA caps $250,000 per person, $500,000 per occurrence (Section 101.023). See the Texas SOL page.
• Comparative fault (51% bar): modified comparative under CPRC Chapter 33. Recovery is reduced by your fault percentage if you are 50% or less at fault; recovery is zero if you are 51% or more at fault. The 51% bar does the most damage in mid-block pedestrian cases where comparative-fault allocations cluster around 40 to 60 percent.
• Driver yield duty: TTC Section 552.003 requires drivers to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk when no signal is in place. Section 552.002 governs walk-signal compliance. Section 552.008 imposes a general due-care duty regardless of crosswalk status.
• Pedestrian yield duty (mid-block): TTC Section 552.005 requires pedestrians outside a crosswalk to yield to vehicles. This is the statutory hook for defense comparative-fault arguments in mid-block cases.
• No cap on pain and suffering: standard auto-PI cases have no statutory limit on non-economic damages. Caps apply only to medical malpractice (CPRC Section 74.301), exemplary damages (CPRC Section 41.008), and governmental defendants.
• No state income tax: lost-wage damages should be calculated on a gross basis without state-level after-tax adjustment, typically increasing the lost-wage component by 5 to 9 percent compared to a state-income-tax jurisdiction.

Texas police use the TxDOT CR-3 crash report to record crash circumstances, unit types, and manner of collision. Medical coders separately apply ICD-10-CM V-codes from the patient record. Two parallel code systems describing the same crash.

• CR-3 unit-type code for the pedestrian (non-occupant) aligns with the ICD-10 V03 category. CR-3 does not have separate codes for “hit by car” versus “hit by pickup”; the medical V03.10XA code makes this distinction because the vehicle category affects expected injury severity.
• CR-3 fields for signal status, crosswalk presence, and pedestrian action (crossing, walking along roadway, standing) are the police equivalent of the comparative-fault evidence that drives the 51% bar analysis.
• CR-3 narratives for pedestrian crashes are often the single most important document in the file. Officer characterization of pedestrian behavior (impaired, distracted, jaywalking) feeds Colossus comparative-fault modeling heavily.

Source: TxDOT crash reports and records, CR-3 form and instructions.