Practice Areas
Car Accidents.
Serious collisions in Houston and across Texas. I take the fight to the insurance company so you do not have to.
Before you call
The car-wreck calls I get most, answered the way I would answer them on the phone. Read the answers → Or call now: (713) 239-2300.
What I take, and how to reach me
I am Orlando Rodriguez, a trial lawyer. The office is in Houston. I take serious car, pickup, SUV and motorcycle crashes, and the wrongful death cases that come from them, in Houston and across South Texas, including Webb, Maverick, Val Verde, Starr, Hidalgo and Cameron counties, in English and in Spanish. No fees unless we win. I am licensed by the State Bar of Texas and admitted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Call (713) 239-2300. If you can, have the crash report number, the other driver’s insurance information, your photos and the names of any witnesses. See a doctor even if you feel fine today, because neck and back injuries often show up later, and do not give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement before we talk.
The adjuster who calls you the day after a wreck is friendly, patient, and paid to close your claim for as little as possible.
A serious car accident does not end when the tow truck leaves. It becomes a contest between an injured person and a professional claims operation that does this every day. The carrier has adjusters, defense lawyers, and a playbook built to make your case smaller. You should have someone whose only job is to make it whole. That is what I do, personally, on every case I take.
Texas is a fault state
Texas does not use no-fault insurance. The driver who caused the crash, and that driver's insurance company, are responsible for the harm. That sounds simple until you realize the entire fight is over one word: fault. Who caused it, and how much.
Texas follows a rule called proportionate responsibility. A jury assigns a percentage of fault to each person involved, your recovery is reduced by your share, and if a jury finds you more than fifty percent at fault, you recover nothing at all. This is why the insurance company works so hard, so early, to pin part of the blame on you. Every point of fault it moves onto you is money out of your pocket.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001 bars recovery when your percentage of responsibility is greater than fifty percent, and reduces it by your share below that line. It is often called the fifty-one percent bar.
The two-year clock
In Texas you generally have two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit. Miss that deadline and the strongest case in the world is worth nothing, because the court will not hear it.
Two years sounds like a long time. It is not. Skid marks fade, vehicles get repaired or crushed, surveillance video is overwritten in weeks, and witnesses forget or move away. The evidence that proves fault is disappearing while the adjuster is still being friendly. The sooner a case is in the hands of someone who knows what to preserve, the stronger it stays.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 sets a two-year limitations period for both personal injury and wrongful death. Certain situations shorten the practical deadline, so the date to act on is always the earliest one.
What the insurance minimums really mean
Texas requires drivers to carry only thirty thousand dollars of injury coverage per person, sixty thousand per crash, and twenty-five thousand for property damage. Those numbers, written thirty sixty twenty-five, are the floor. One ambulance ride, an emergency room visit, and a single surgery can pass the per-person injury limit before the long-term bills even start.
When the at-fault driver carries only the minimum, or carries nothing at all, the case does not end. It turns toward your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, the part of your policy built for exactly this moment. More on uninsured and underinsured motorist claims →
Types of car accident cases I handle
Rear-End Collisions
The car behind is usually at fault. Usually is not always, and soft-tissue injury is real even when the bumper looks fine.
Learn more →
Drunk Driving Accidents
A criminal case punishes the driver. A civil case pays for the harm, and the bar that overserved can share the blame.
Learn more →
Uninsured & Underinsured
When the other driver has no coverage or too little, the fight turns toward your own policy.
Learn more →
Distracted Driving
Phone records, not apologies, prove what a driver was doing in the seconds before impact.
Learn more →
From The Night Docket
The science and the craft behind these cases, from my writing desk:
One Word: Conspicuity →
At night a trailer is only as visible as the light it carries or gives back, and the law counts the lamps and measures the tape. The red and white strips federal law requires on a big trailer, the two lamps and two reflectors Texas requires on every trailer, and why a rider who goes into the back of one in the dark has a case about the trailer before it is about his speed.
One Word: Consent to Settle →
Your own insurance company gets a say before you release the driver who hurt you, and the clause that gives it that say can cost you your underinsured motorist claim. What the clause says, the Texas Supreme Court case that limits it to an insurer that was actually prejudiced, why the UIM claim is a second case, and the one letter that keeps the fight about your injuries.
Permission to Settle, Notice to Settle, or Just Settle →
Before you sign a release with the at-fault driver’s insurer, your own underinsured motorist policy has a consent-to-settle clause. The three roads at that fork, what Texas courts say about each, and why the UIM claim is a second case, not a formality.
One Word: Responsible Third Party →
The defendant who says it was not me, it was him, has a procedure for saying so, and it changes the arithmetic of the case. Who can be named, how the designation is made and struck, what the empty chair does to what the defendants pay, the unknown driver named as John Doe, why a phantom car cuts the injured person twice, and the deadline that decides whether the share the jury hands out is a share anyone pays.
Dispatch: The One Door →
When the vehicle that hurt someone belonged to a government, the way into a Texas courtroom is not the usual one: there is one door, the Tort Claims Act, and it opens only for an injury that arises from the use of the vehicle, only on its own clock, only up to a cap, and only against the government itself. What operation or use means, whose employee the driver was, the six-month notice, the caps, and the election that bars the driver.
One Word: Sudden Incapacity →
A driver who is unconscious cannot be careless, and a sudden loss of consciousness excuses a crash only when it could not have been foreseen. The Houston case that states the rule, the facts that make a collapse foreseeable, the lines the state draws for licensing and for commercial drivers, how the record proves it, and who pays when no one was at fault.
Dispatch: The Blackout →
Sometimes the crash that looks like one driver’s plain mistake is a stroke, a seizure or a faint that took the driver before the car ever left its lane, and Texas law does not ask only what the driver did; it asks whether he could have seen it coming. The loss-of-consciousness defense, the word it turns on, why the record and not the account decides it, and who still pays when no one was at fault.
Dispatch: The Roof and the Tank →
A car that rolls once and comes to rest can leave the people inside alive; a car that rolls and then crushes down on them, or burns before they can get out, is a different event. The roof-strength and fuel-system standards, what meeting a federal standard does in a Texas courtroom, whose claim carries the driver’s share, and why the wreck itself is the evidence.
One Word: Reasonable and Prudent →
The three words that make the number on the sign the beginning of the Texas speed law and not the end of it. What Section 545.351 asks, what the posted limit proves and does not, why the state counts more vehicles in fatal crashes for speeding under the limit than over it, the rule for headlights at night, and what a crash report’s speed codes settle.
Dispatch: I Never Saw Them →
A driver who stops after a crash in the dark almost always says the same thing, and Texas law does not ask whether he saw the person; it asks whether he was driving so that he could. The speed-for-conditions duty, the due care owed to a person on foot, the arithmetic of headlights at sixty, how a pedestrian’s own mistake divides a recovery rather than ending it, and why the proof is physical.
One Word: Render Aid →
A driver in a crash that hurts someone owes four things before anything else: stop, return, find out whether anyone needs help, and stay. What the statute requires, what leaving costs, why the rule is written for the injured person, and how the civil case goes on when the driver is never found.
Dispatch: The Perimeter →
A crash does not end when the cars stop. A red light run at Hillcroft and Richmond, a police perimeter that other cars then crashed into, a sergeant hit on foot, and a Buick that left its lane on the Grand Parkway and burned at the end of a median. The edge line, the scene as a hazard, the three duties Texas writes for the driver who comes up on it, and who answers.
Dispatch: The Siren →
The federal study of sirens concluded that relying on them to warn drivers in traffic is not justified, and the intersection is where emergency vehicles meet traffic. What Texas asks of the emergency driver, the emergency exception to the Tort Claims Act, the recklessness bar, and the 2022 rule that a department’s own policy is not a law.
The Body: Ride-Down →
A crash is a stop, and what matters to the body is how much distance the stop is spread over: a belted person slows with the car across feet of crumpling metal, an unbelted person over inches of dashboard, at several times the force. The arithmetic, the belt, the air bag, and the two questions Texas law asks in order.
Dispatch: Slow Moving →
The orange triangle warns that a vehicle is slow, but the danger is the closing speed: a tractor at twenty on a road posted at sixty is a forty mile an hour closing problem the eye reads as nearly parked. The three crashes that repeat, the emblem Texas requires at five hundred feet, and how the fault is divided.
Dispatch: The Hood Line →
A low car strikes an adult in the legs and the body wraps onto the hood; a tall front meets a child above the center of balance and throws the child forward and down. Hoods above forty inches were about forty-five percent more likely to kill, and Texas asks a driver for due care to anyone on foot and proper precaution on seeing a child.
One Word: Move Over →
When a patrol car, a tow truck, a road crew or a utility truck is stopped with its lights going, Texas owes it a lane or twenty miles an hour. What the statute lists, what it has cost since 2023, why a stopped vehicle is the fastest closing speed there is, and how the rule works in a civil case.
Dispatch: The Pole →
A pole slips past the frame rails built to fold, so a crash people picture as minor can be fatal. The claim survives against a dead driver’s estate, fault is divided among everyone involved, and your own uninsured and underinsured coverage stands behind the gap.
The Body: Past the Light →
Low beams light about the next 200 feet, and at highway speed a car needs more than that to stop. How far headlights really reach, the arithmetic of outrunning them, why a dark object appears so late, and how Texas divides a crash at the edge of the beam.
One Word: Eggshell →
The person who hurt you takes you as he finds you. Why a pre-existing condition is not a defense in Texas, what aggravation means, why the word degenerative on an MRI proves almost nothing, and how to build the before.
Dispatch: The Swerve →
An animal on a dark road, half a second to react, and a rollover that is almost always tripped by the edge the tire caught. Texas counts about 7,585 animal crashes a year, and the law judges the reaction as closely as the hazard.
The Body: The Egg Carton →
How a school bus protects children without belts, where compartmentalization stops in a side impact and a rollover, what Texas now requires on every bus, and who answers when a car crosses the line into one.
The Body: Low-Side, High-Side →
A motorcycle that loses its grip slides out on its low side or throws the rider over the high side. The traction budget, what each fall breaks, why the rider could not steer out of it, and what the road keeps as evidence.
One Word: Single-Vehicle →
One vehicle on the scene does not mean nobody at fault. The road, the debris, the vehicle itself, the car that never touched you, and the passengers: where the other defendant is, and the Texas rules for each.
The Body: Seven Times the Energy →
Every car is built for a crash in the thirties, and a car at 100 carries seven to eight times that energy. The same crash at 40, 50 and 56 mph, stopping distance, and where speed becomes gross negligence.
Dispatch: The Left Turn →
In 45 percent of fatal two-vehicle motorcycle crashes in 2024, the other vehicle was turning left. Why a driver can look straight at a motorcycle and still not see it in time, the Texas yield rule, and why the helmet goes to injury, not fault.
One Word: Hydroplane →
The other driver says he hydroplaned. What hydroplaning is, the speed and tire rules behind it, and the federal rule that trucks slow down in the rain.
One Word: Sudden Emergency →
It came out of nowhere. The instruction the other side may ask for, the condition written into it, and the argument against it when traffic stops or the road is wet.
Dispatch: Broadside →
Side impacts were 22 percent of passenger vehicle occupant deaths in 2024. Why the struck side gets inches instead of feet, what the federal side standard tests, and the Texas right-of-way presumption.
One Word: Barricade →
Driving around a barricade is an offense, and a heavier one when water is over the road. What that does to a claim, and when a government answers for a barricade that was missing.
Dispatch: High Water →
A foot of water floats many vehicles. Going around a barricade weighs against the driver but does not end the case, and a missing or broken warning the government was told about can put it in the case.
Dispatch: The Queue →
Rear-end crashes are the most common work-zone crash. The driver behind owes room to stop, the zone owes the warning, and the traffic-control plan is one of the first records the case needs.
Dispatch: The Gap →
About 1.75 million rear-end crashes a year. Texas measures the gap by the stop, and a jury, not an automatic rule, decides whether the room was safe.
Dispatch: Rolled →
Rollovers were 28 percent of the people killed riding in passenger vehicles in 2023. Why a rollover puts the vehicle on trial: stability, the roof, and whether it kept the people inside.
Dispatch: Stranded →
Two people on foot were killed on Houston freeways the same Saturday night. A driver’s duty to a person on foot does not end where the sidewalk does, and what to do if your car dies on a freeway.
Dispatch: Thrown →
Of the vehicle occupants totally ejected in fatal crashes nationally in 2023, 82 percent were killed. The belt’s first job is keeping you inside; the car has that job too.
Dispatch: The Wrong Lane →
Head-on crashes killed 555 people on Texas roads in 2025. In a head-on the two speeds add; the driver who crossed the line brought the collision.
Dispatch: The Phone →
Texas tied distracted driving to 86,384 crashes and 299 deaths in 2025. The danger is the eyes, not the phone, and the phone that caused the crash is the record that proves it, if someone moves to preserve it.
Dispatch: The Belt →
Texas counted 965 people killed unbuckled in 2025. Why the belt keeps the body inside the survival space, and why since Nabors v. Romero a jury can score the missing belt against the recovery.
Dispatch: Squared →
Speed multiplies the danger, and Texas tied it to 150,000+ crashes and 1,247 deaths in 2025. Why the posted limit is a ceiling, not a safe harbor.
Dispatch: The Work Zone →
Texas counted 203 killed in its work zones in 2025; almost all were drivers passing through. Why the law raises the standard the moment you pass the sign.
Dispatch: Gone →
Why a driver who leaves is a wrong of its own, and why a driver who is never found does not close the case but turns it toward the victim’s own coverage.
Dispatch: Ungated →
A CBS News Texas review found 704 school-bus rail crossings with no gates; the choices behind the crossbuck are evidence.
Dispatch: The Yellow Bus →
A school bus with eighteen children in a crash, two more the month before, 877 school-zone crashes in a year, and why the red stop arm is a command the law backs.
Dispatch: Over the Barrier →
Two motorcyclists over the wall of an elevated San Antonio ramp in two days, and the crash-test manual with no motorcycle in it.
Dispatch: Two a Day →
Two motorcyclists killed in San Antonio in two days, the TxDOT count, and why a rider has no cage.
Crashworthiness →
When the car did not cause the crash but made the injury worse: the federal standards, the presumption, and why the car has to be saved.
Delta-V →
Why the speed change in a crash, not the number on the speedometer, is what injures the body.
Centerline →
The one-sentence Texas rule behind head-on crashes on two-lane roads, its four exceptions, and which excuses the law accepts.
Closing Speed →
In a head-on, the two speeds add. The physics of why a moderate-looking wreck is not moderate.
Looking, Not Seeing →
Perception and reaction time, and why I never saw them is a confession, not a defense.
The Second Hit →
Chain-reaction crashes and the question of which impact did the harm.
Comparative Fault →
How Texas splits the blame, and why the insurer wants a share of it assigned to you.
Common Questions
How long do I have to file a car accident claim in Texas?
Generally two years from the date of the crash, under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003. Some circumstances shorten that window, so it is safest to treat the earliest possible date as the deadline and act well before it.
Do I still have a case if I was partly at fault?
Often, yes. Texas reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault and only bars it entirely if you are found more than fifty percent responsible. Being partly at fault is not the end of a claim, but it is exactly what the insurance company will try to exaggerate.
What if the driver who hit me had no insurance?
Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage may apply. Texas insurers must offer it and can only leave it off if you rejected it in writing. Recovering on it can mean pursuing your own carrier, which is one reason to have a lawyer handling the claim.
What does it cost to hire you?
Nothing up front. Serious injury cases are handled on a contingency fee, which means the fee comes out of any recovery and there is no fee if there is no recovery. The first conversation is free.
Tell me what happened.
Free consultation. No fees unless we win. Speak with me directly, not a screener.
Contact Orlando Rodriguez