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Yes, and Mississippi law gives an attorney real tools to do it. A driver who leaves the state does not leave the claim behind. The Mississippi long-arm statute reaches a nonresident who commits a tort here. The Department of Public Safety may release the identity of a person involved in a crash when that identity is not otherwise known. Federal law permits a state motor vehicle department to release records for use in litigation. Our North Mississippi car accident attorneys use all three.
Where the Driver’s Information Comes From
Most of what an attorney needs is created in the first hour after a crash, and someone else writes it down. Mississippi law requires the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident causing injury, death, or damage to an attended vehicle to give a name, address, and vehicle registration number, and to show a license on request if available.
A driver in a crash causing injury, death, or apparent property damage of $500 or more must also notify law enforcement immediately. The responding agency must then investigate and forward a written report. State law directs the Department of Public Safety to collect phone numbers from the parties and the witnesses on the statewide uniform crash report form.
Mississippi crash reports are largely closed. The statute makes them confidential to the Department of Public Safety, then names who may request them in writing:
- A person involved in the accident
- That person’s spouse or next of kin
- A person against whom a claim is made as a result of the accident
- The representative of an involved person’s estate
On a request from that group, the department may release everything except the parties’ written versions of the crash, to the requester, the requester’s lawyer, or a representative of the requester’s insurer. The statute then goes further, in exactly the situation this article is about.
The department may disclose the identity of a person involved in an accident when that identity is not otherwise known, or when the person denies being present. The state makes every requester declare which category applies. Someone not authorized to receive the report who fraudulently obtains it, or tries to, commits a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to $2,500, jail time, or both.
The Federal Rule Behind Any Driver Record Search
A name on a report is not always enough, because the address on a license can be two moves out of date. The next step is the motor vehicle record, and federal law governs it.
The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act bars a state motor vehicle department from releasing personal information from a motor vehicle record, then lists the uses for which it may be released. One covers any civil proceeding in any court, including the service of process, investigation in anticipation of litigation, and the enforcement of judgments. That is a permission granted to the releasing agency rather than a right of access, and each state runs a different request process, so no lawyer should promise a same-day answer.
One boundary cuts the other way. The statute excludes information on vehicular accidents, driving violations, and driver’s status from the definition of personal information, so those items sit outside the restriction entirely. The federal limits on releasing driver record information set the outer edge of what anyone can do with the result.
Mississippi Can Reach a Driver Who Never Comes Back
Finding a driver and serving a driver are separate problems. The Legislature addressed the second.
Under the long-arm statute, a nonresident who commits a tort in whole or in part in this state is deemed to be doing business here and subject to the jurisdiction of Mississippi courts. The same statute says service is made as provided by the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure.
A separate statute supplies a substituted route. By driving on a Mississippi road, a nonresident is deemed to appoint the Secretary of State as an agent to receive process in any action growing out of a collision here. The sheriff of Hinds County serves two copies of the summons on the Secretary of State, with a fee of $15 per nonresident defendant. The Secretary of State then mails notice and a copy to the driver at the last known address, by certified or registered mail restricted to the addressee, and the return receipt or proof of refusal must be filed before judgment can be entered. That route presupposes you have identified the driver and have a last known address, so it answers the absent driver rather than the unidentified one. Which path applies in a given motor vehicle accident case is a question for your lawyer.
What Happens if the Driver Is Never Identified
Some drivers are never found. The claim then moves to your policy, and one condition determines the outcome.
Mississippi requires every automobile liability policy to include uninsured motorist coverage unless the named insured rejects it in writing on a form approved by the Department of Insurance that explains the coverage’s benefits. A rejection signed on that form binds everyone insured under the policy and creates a presumption of an informed, knowing waiver. Whether a compliant form was used is itself worth litigating.
The definition of an uninsured motor vehicle is broad. It covers a vehicle with no bodily injury liability insurance. It reaches one whose insurer has legally denied coverage, or is insolvent at the time of the accident or within the 12 months after it. It reaches one whose liability limits fall below the uninsured motorist limits that apply to you. It also reaches a vehicle whose owner or operator is unknown, but only on one condition.
Actual physical contact must have occurred between that vehicle and you or your property. How Mississippi courts apply that requirement when the contact reaches you through an object or another vehicle is contested, so do not assume either way.
Why the First Few Weeks Decide the Case
Mississippi gives most injured people three years to file a personal injury lawsuit, and much shorter notice periods apply to claims involving a city, county, or state vehicle. Either way, the number misleads, because the information that identifies a driver has a far shorter life.
A few steps protect the record while it still exists:
- Report the crash to law enforcement at the scene rather than afterward
- Write down the plate number, the issuing state, and the make, model, and color
- Photograph the plate, both vehicles, and the damage
- Get the name and phone number of anyone who stopped
- Save dashcam video, and ask nearby businesses about footage the same week
- Request the crash report once the investigating agency has filed it
Security video is often overwritten quickly, sometimes within days, and witnesses move. A plate number written down at the scene is often the only detail that survives long enough to matter.
How We Handle These Claims in North Mississippi
Our roots here reach back to 1932, and we hear the same worry whenever the at-fault driver has a plate from somewhere else. People assume the case is gone. It is not.
We request the crash report as counsel for an involved party, seek the motor vehicle record for the litigation purpose federal law recognizes, and confirm what coverage exists on both sides. When a driver cannot be reached, we look to the substituted service route. We are licensed in Mississippi and Tennessee, which matters where a wreck on I-55 can involve someone who was home in Memphis 20 minutes later.
We are a small firm on purpose, and clients deal directly with an attorney. That is what The Lawyers That Listen means in practice.
Talk With a North Mississippi Car Accident Attorney
If the driver who hit you lives in another state, the identifying details are already fading. For a free and confidential consultation, contact us to speak with a lawyer. There are no attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you. We serve North Mississippi from offices in Southaven, Hernando, and Memphis.
