Hit and Run in Richmond, VA: Attended vs. Unattended Property

A hit-and-run charge in Richmond, Virginia is not one offense — it is several, and which one applies depends on a distinction most people have never heard of: whether the vehicle or property struck was attended or unattended. Get that distinction right and the rest of the law falls into place; miss it, and “hit and run is a felony in Virginia” turns out to be wrong for the single most common real-world case, hitting a parked car.

The Two Kinds of Hit and Run: Attended vs. Unattended

Attended means someone was in or with the vehicle or property, or a person was injured or killed. Va. Code § 46.2-894 governs this case, and the penalty turns on the outcome: a Class 5 felony if there is injury or death, or if property damage exceeds $1,000 — and only a Class 1 misdemeanor if the damage is $1,000 or less.

Unattended means the classic parked-car case: nobody was in or with the vehicle or property that was struck. The duties are set out in Va. Code § 46.2-896, and the penalty is in § 46.2-900 — a Class 1 misdemeanor for property damage generally, but only a Class 4 misdemeanor — Virginia’s lowest criminal class, a fine only, no jail — where the property struck was unattended and the damage came to less than $250. That conviction also carries three DMV demerit points.

So the honest answer to “is hitting a parked car a felony in Virginia?” is almost always no. The felony tier in § 46.2-894 requires an attended vehicle or a person; a minor parked-car incident under $250 is the least serious criminal class in the Commonwealth, not the most serious.

What the Law Actually Requires You to Do

The duties differ by scenario, and both are more specific than “leave your information.”

If the property or vehicle was attended, § 46.2-894 requires the driver to stop immediately as close to the scene as possible without obstructing traffic, and to report their name, address, driver’s license number and vehicle registration number — to a law-enforcement officer, and to the person struck, the other driver, or the custodian of the damaged property. The driver must also render reasonable assistance to anyone injured, including arranging transport to a doctor or hospital if it is apparent one is needed.

If the property was unattended, § 46.2-896 requires a reasonable effort to find the owner and give the same information. If the owner cannot be found, leaving a note is not the end of it: the driver must leave a note or other sufficient information — including identification and contact details — in a conspicuous place at the scene, and separately file a written report within 24 hours to the State Police or the local police department. Both steps are required; a note on the windshield alone does not satisfy the statute.

Penalties at a Glance

Scenario	Statute	Charge
Attended property/vehicle, injury or death, or damage over $1,000	§ 46.2-894	Class 5 felony
Attended property/vehicle, damage $1,000 or less	§ 46.2-894	Class 1 misdemeanor
Unattended property, injury or death	§ 46.2-900	Class 6 felony
Unattended property, damage $250 or more	§ 46.2-900	Class 1 misdemeanor
Unattended property, damage under $250	§ 46.2-900	Class 4 misdemeanor + 3 DMV points

Va. Code § 18.2-11 sets a Class 1 misdemeanor at up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine, and a Class 4 misdemeanor at a fine of not more than $250 with no jail exposure at all. The gap between the top and bottom rows of this table is enormous for what can be, physically, a very similar incident — which is exactly why the attended/unattended distinction, and the dollar amount of the damage, matter more than almost anything else in a Richmond hit-and-run case. Where a case sits close to a dollar threshold, or where it is genuinely unclear whether a vehicle counted as attended, is precisely the kind of factual question a Virginia criminal defense attorney reviewing the specific police report can assess — this page can only describe how the statutes draw the lines.

The Passenger’s Duty, If the Driver Doesn’t Stop

A duty to report a hit and run is not limited to the driver. Va. Code § 46.2-895 puts a separate duty on any passenger 16 or older who knows about the accident: if the driver fails to stop and report as required, that passenger must see to it that a report is made — with their own name, address and what they know — within 24 hours, to the State Police or, inside a city or town, the local police.

A Related but Different Charge: Reckless Driving Causing Death

A driver who stops at the scene — so none of the hit-and-run statutes above apply — but was driving recklessly and caused a fatality faces a separate consequence: Va. Code § 46.2-396 lets the court suspend that driver’s license for up to twelve months, on top of whatever the reckless driving charge itself carries. This is a different statute from the hit-and-run duty-to-stop chain above; it applies to a driver who remained at the scene, and it is mentioned here only because searches for a fatal Richmond crash sometimes involve both questions at once.

Reporting Late Does Not Undo a Failure to Stop

Nothing in either statute lets a driver cure a failure to stop by reporting well after the fact once it becomes convenient. Section 46.2-894 does have a narrow accommodation: where the driver’s own injuries from the accident prevented immediate compliance, the driver must report as soon as reasonably possible afterward and make a reasonable effort to locate the person or property involved. That is an exception for a driver who genuinely could not act at the time, not a general grace period for reconsidering a decision to leave.

Where a Richmond Hit-and-Run Case Is Heard

A misdemeanor hit-and-run case from Richmond is heard in the city’s own General District Court, the same as any other Richmond traffic misdemeanor — see how a Virginia traffic court hearing works on this site for the general procedure, and the Richmond City General District Court’s own page on Virginia’s Judicial System site for its divisions, address and clerk’s telephone number. A felony charge starts with a preliminary hearing in that same court; if the general district court finds probable cause, the felony itself is certified to the Richmond Circuit Court. What a Virginia circuit court does with a case that reaches it, whether by certification or by appeal, is set out on this site’s Wythe County page.