EXPERIENCED PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER SERVING ALL OF TEXAS
Getting hit by a drunk driver turns your life upside down fast. Medical bills pile up. Your car sits in a lot somewhere. You might be out of work. And the insurance company for the driver who caused all of this is already working against you — often before you’ve even left the hospital.
Most people in this situation don’t know what their next move should be. They take the first settlement offer. They miss deadlines. They give statements that hurt their case. Then they call a lawyer and find out they’ve already made things harder for themselves.
This post lays out six specific tips that actually matter when you’re pursuing a DUI or DWI accident claim in Texas — not general advice you could find anywhere, but practical guidance drawn from handling these cases right here in Irving. If you want to talk through your situation directly, Dashner Law Firm | Irving Injury & Accident Attorney offers free consultations and serves injury victims throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
What Makes DUI/DWI Accident Claims in Irving Different from Regular Car Accident Cases?
This is one of the first questions people ask after a drunk driving crash, and the answer matters. A DWI accident case in Texas isn’t just a car wreck with a different driver. The legal mechanics are different, and the potential damages are different too.
Texas law treats driving while intoxicated as a serious criminal offense under Texas Penal Code § 49.04. When that criminal behavior directly causes someone else’s injury, the civil case that follows carries different weight than a standard negligence claim. You’re not just proving the driver made a mistake. You’re showing they acted with conscious disregard for other people’s safety. That opens the door to something most car accident cases don’t have: punitive damages.
Punitive damages — called exemplary damages in Texas — are designed to punish the wrongdoer, not just compensate you. Under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 41.003, a jury can award exemplary damages when the defendant’s actions show malice or gross negligence. Texas courts have consistently held that choosing to drive drunk qualifies. This is a significant financial lever that doesn’t exist in most ordinary fender-bender cases.
The drunk driver also faces a parallel criminal prosecution. That criminal case can actually help your civil claim. Police reports, toxicology results, field sobriety test records, and any guilty pleas or convictions all become usable in your civil case. The Texas DWI Accident Attorney route means your lawyer can pull from both tracks — criminal and civil — to build a stronger picture of what happened and who’s responsible.
Irving sits along the I-635 and SH-114 corridors, both of which see heavy traffic from DFW Airport commuters, late-night bar traffic from nearby Las Colinas entertainment venues, and freight movement around the Irving Distribution Center area. DWI arrests in this part of Dallas County are not rare events. Irving Police Department and DPS troopers work the area regularly, and the crash data reflects it. Understanding that local enforcement environment matters when you’re gathering evidence and preparing a claim.
How Do You Preserve Evidence After a Drunk Driving Crash in Irving?
Evidence in a DWI accident case starts disappearing the moment the crash happens. Here’s the hard reality: insurance adjusters know this, and they move fast. Your lawyer needs to move faster.
The most time-sensitive piece of evidence is the driver’s blood alcohol content (BAC). Under Texas law, law enforcement can draw blood from a DWI suspect in certain circumstances — after a crash causing serious injury or death, for example — without a warrant. The results of that blood draw become part of the police report and the criminal case file. Get your lawyer working on obtaining those records immediately.
Surveillance footage is another thing that disappears quickly. Intersections along MacArthur Boulevard, Story Road, and Belt Line Road in Irving often have traffic cameras. Nearby businesses — gas stations, fast food restaurants, strip malls — routinely overwrite their footage within 24 to 72 hours unless someone puts them on notice to preserve it. Your attorney needs to send preservation letters to these businesses the day you hire them, or you lose that footage permanently.
Witness statements go stale. People forget details, move away, or stop cooperating. A lawyer who acts within the first few days can get signed, detailed statements before memories fade. Bystanders at the scene, other drivers, first responders — all of them can speak to the driver’s condition, how the crash happened, and what was said at the scene.
The CDC reports that drunk driving kills about 13,500 people in the United States each year. In Texas specifically, the numbers are consistently among the highest in the country. Part of what makes these crashes so destructive is the speed differential — drunk drivers often fail to brake, which means higher-impact collisions and more serious injuries. Those injuries themselves are evidence. Photograph everything. Keep all medical records. Document every symptom, every limitation, every day you couldn’t work or care for your family.
One more thing most people overlook: the at-fault driver’s cell phone records. Distracted driving and drunk driving sometimes happen together. Your attorney can subpoena phone records to see if the driver was also texting or calling at the moment of impact. That kind of layered evidence can dramatically change the value of your case.
What Should You Avoid Saying to Insurance Companies After a DWI Crash?
Insurance companies are businesses. Their goal after a crash is to pay out as little as possible, as quickly as possible. A recorded statement from you — made before you’ve talked to a lawyer — is one of their most effective tools for doing exactly that.
The at-fault driver’s insurer may call you within hours of the accident. They’ll sound helpful. They’ll express concern. Then they’ll ask questions designed to get you to say something that minimizes their client’s liability or your injuries. Phrases like “I’m okay” or “I didn’t see them coming” can be used against you in ways you won’t anticipate. Your own insurer can also create problems if you say the wrong things too early.
The single most important thing you can do before talking to any insurance company is call a Texas DUI accident lawyer. Not after. Before.
Under Texas law, you’re generally not required to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company. You do have obligations to your own insurer under your policy, but even those communications should happen with legal guidance. A lawyer can handle those conversations for you, which takes the pressure off and prevents costly mistakes.
Avoid posting about the accident on social media. Insurance defense teams actively monitor Facebook, Instagram, and similar platforms looking for anything that contradicts your injury claims. A photo of you at a family cookout two weeks after the crash — even if you’re in pain — can be taken out of context and used to undermine your case.
FindLaw and other legal resource sites offer general guidance on interacting with insurers after accidents, but DWI cases carry extra complexity because the criminal charges against the driver create a separate stream of legal activity that affects how adjusters handle your claim. The insurer knows a jury may hear this case and may award punitive damages — which changes their negotiating posture significantly if your attorney knows how to apply that pressure.
What Types of Damages Can You Recover as a DWI Accident Victim in Texas?
People often underestimate what they’re entitled to recover. They think about their car repair and their ER bill and nothing else. The full picture is much larger.
Texas law allows DWI accident victims to pursue compensation for economic damages — the concrete financial losses — and non-economic damages, which cover the harder-to-measure harm.
Economic damages include all medical expenses, both past and future. If your injuries require ongoing treatment, surgery, physical therapy, or long-term care, those future costs need to be calculated with expert help. They also include lost wages for the time you missed work, and lost earning capacity if the injuries permanently affect your ability to do your job. Vehicle damage, rental car costs, and out-of-pocket expenses are also in play.
Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. Texas doesn’t cap these in personal injury cases (only in certain medical malpractice claims), so a skilled attorney can pursue the full measure of what your suffering is actually worth.
Then there are those exemplary damages mentioned earlier. In a DWI case, where the defendant’s conduct was criminally reckless, juries take this seriously. Texas caps exemplary damages at the larger of $200,000 or two times economic damages plus up to $750,000 in non-economic damages — still a substantial amount in serious injury cases.
If someone was killed by a drunk driver, the family may have a wrongful death claim under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 71.002. Texas Wrongful Death Attorneys handle these claims for surviving spouses, children, and parents, and the damages available include loss of companionship, mental anguish, and the financial support the deceased would have provided.
Traumatic brain injuries are common in high-impact DWI crashes. The Mayo Clinic notes that TBIs range from mild concussions to severe damage affecting cognition, personality, and physical function. Our Texas Brain Injury Attorneys regularly work with neurologists and life care planners to document the long-term cost of these injuries — because insurance companies will absolutely try to minimize them.
How Do You Choose the Right Drunk Driving Injury Attorney for Your Irving Case?
Not every personal injury lawyer has handled DWI accident cases. This matters more than people realize. The criminal-civil overlap, the availability of punitive damages, the specific evidence sources — these are case-specific skills that take real experience to handle well.
When you’re evaluating attorneys, ask direct questions. How many DWI accident cases have they handled? Have they taken any to trial? Do they work with accident reconstruction experts and medical specialists? Will they personally handle your case, or will it be passed to a junior associate?
Look at their results. See our reviews and settlements from past clients — these tell you far more than a firm’s advertising does. Pay attention to whether the attorney communicates clearly and explains things in plain terms, or whether they bury you in jargon and hedge everything.
Ask about fees. Most DWI accident attorneys work on contingency, meaning you pay nothing unless they recover money for you. That’s the standard at Dashner Law Firm | Irving Injury & Accident Attorney. You should also ask what percentage they take and whether costs are deducted before or after the contingency fee is applied — those details affect what you actually receive.
Local knowledge counts. An attorney who knows the Irving court system, the Dallas County civil courts, local judges, and the typical tactics used by adjusters in the DFW market will handle your case differently than a firm that’s never filed a claim in this jurisdiction. Learn more about our team and the experience we bring to these cases.
The American Bar Association recommends that injury victims consult with a licensed attorney before making any decisions about their claims. In Texas, the statute of limitations for personal injury is two years from the date of the accident under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.003. Two years sounds like a long time, but evidence preservation and case preparation require action now, not months from now.
What Happens if the Drunk Driver Had No Insurance or Minimal Coverage?
This scenario is more common than most people expect. Texas requires drivers to carry minimum liability coverage of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident, but plenty of people ignore that requirement. And even if the drunk driver was insured, $30,000 often doesn’t come close to covering serious injuries.
If the at-fault driver is uninsured, your uninsured motorist (UM) coverage kicks in — if you have it. Texas doesn’t require drivers to carry UM coverage, but insurers must offer it, and if you declined it, you may not have that backstop. Check your policy now, before you ever need it.
If the drunk driver carried minimal insurance, underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage can make up the difference between their policy limit and your actual damages. Again, this requires that you purchased UIM coverage. A DUI accident lawyer will analyze all available coverage sources — including your own policy — to identify every dollar available to you.
There’s also the question of third-party liability, sometimes called “dram shop” liability. Under Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code § 2.02, a bar, restaurant, or other alcohol provider can be held liable for a drunk driving crash if they served alcohol to someone who was visibly intoxicated. This opens up a separate defendant — often one with much deeper pockets than the driver — and can dramatically change the financial outcome of your case.
Justia provides accessible summaries of Texas dram shop law and its requirements. The key is proving the establishment knew the person was obviously intoxicated and continued serving them anyway. Receipts, surveillance footage from the bar, witness testimony from other patrons, and the driver’s BAC level at the time of the crash all contribute to this analysis.
Pedestrians hit by drunk drivers face some of the worst injuries of any crash type — they have no vehicle structure protecting them. Our Texas Pedestrian Accident Attorneys handle cases where walkers, joggers, and cyclists are struck by impaired drivers. The same principles apply: gather evidence fast, identify all available coverage, and pursue every responsible party.
Taking the Next Step After a DWI Accident in Irving
These six areas — understanding what makes DWI claims different, preserving evidence early, protecting yourself from insurance mistakes, knowing your full damages, choosing the right attorney, and identifying all coverage sources — are where DWI accident cases are won or lost. Miss one of them and you may leave significant money on the table, or worse, lose a claim you should have won.
The sooner you act, the better your position. Evidence disappears. Deadlines approach. The other side is not waiting for you.
If you or someone you care about was injured by a drunk driver in Irving or anywhere in Texas, reach out to Dashner Law Firm | Irving Injury & Accident Attorney for a free, no-obligation consultation. You can contact us online at any time, or call us directly at (972) 635-4460. Our office is located at 4500 Fuller Dr, Irving, TX 75038.
We handle DWI accident cases on contingency — you pay nothing unless we recover for you. Our Irving location is ready to help you understand your rights and take action while there’s still time to do it right.
For additional resources on Texas drunk driving accident claims and related practice areas, visit our Texas DWI Accident Attorney page or browse the Dashner Law legal blog for more in-depth guidance on injury cases across Texas.
