When a Hit and Run Is a Felony in Virginia

A hit and run is a felony in Virginia in two situations, and neither of them is the ordinary parked-car case. Under Va. Code § 46.2-894, leaving the scene is a Class 5 felony where the accident results in injury to or the death of any person, or in more than $1,000 of damage to property. Below that line, the same section makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor.

The $1,000 line that makes a hit and run a felony in Virginia

Section 46.2-894 applies to an accident in which a person is killed or injured, or in which an attended vehicle or other attended property is damaged. Attended means someone was in it or with it at the time. The last paragraph of the section sets the penalty and draws the line in two places at once:

• Injury or death — a Class 5 felony, whatever the dollar amount of the damage.
• More than $1,000 of damage to property — a Class 5 felony, even with nobody hurt.
• $1,000 or less — a Class 1 misdemeanor.

There is no third tier and no discretion in the classification itself: the facts decide which limb applies. The $1,000 figure is the statutory line, not $500 and not $2,500, and it is measured against the damage the accident caused rather than against a repair estimate the driver happened to see.

Virginia’s other hit-and-run felony: § 46.2-900

The article contains a second felony, and it is aimed at passengers rather than the driver. Reading the whole article in order is the quickest way to see how the two fit together. Section 46.2-895 provides that where a driver fails to stop and report, every person aged 16 or older in the vehicle who knew about the accident has a duty to make sure a report is made within 24 hours, to the State Police or, where the accident happened in a city or town, to the local law-enforcement agency. Section 46.2-897 does the same for accidents damaging only unattended property.

Section 46.2-900 then sets the penalty for violations of §§ 46.2-895 through 46.2-897: a Class 6 felony where the accident resulted in injury to or the death of any person, a Class 1 misdemeanor where it resulted only in property damage, and a Class 4 misdemeanor in the small unattended-property case. A passenger who says nothing after a serious hit and run is therefore exposed to a felony of his own — a different class from the driver’s, under a different section.

It is worth being clear about which section does what, because the numbering invites the opposite conclusion. Section 46.2-894 carries its own penalty in its final paragraph. Section 46.2-900 is the penalty section for §§ 46.2-895 through 46.2-897 — not for § 46.2-894.

What a Class 5 felony carries in Virginia

Virginia’s sentencing ranges are set in § 18.2-10. Class 5 and Class 6 are the two felony classes for which that section offers an alternative punishment of jail and a fine instead of a prison term.

Class	Punishment under § 18.2-10
Class 5 felony (§ 46.2-894)	Imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than 10 years; or, in the discretion of the jury or of the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both
Class 6 felony (§ 46.2-900)	Imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years; or, in the discretion of the jury or of the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both

That alternative is available only “in the discretion of the jury or the court trying the case without a jury,” in the words of § 18.2-10. It changes the punishment, not the class: a conviction under the felony limb of § 46.2-894 remains a felony conviction even where the sentence imposed is the jail-and-fine alternative. Whether a particular court uses it is not something any guide can say.

The license consequence is separate and automatic

A conviction reaches the DMV independently of whatever the court does about jail. Under § 46.2-389, the Commissioner must revoke a driver’s license for one year on receiving a record of conviction of, among other listed offenses:

• any crime punishable as a felony under the motor vehicle laws of the Commonwealth, or any other felony in the commission of which a motor vehicle is used (subdivision A 5); and
• “failure to stop and disclose his identity at the scene of the accident, on the part of a driver of a motor vehicle involved in an accident resulting in the death of or injury to another person” (subdivision A 6).

Subdivision A 6 reaches a hit and run involving injury or death by name, and it is not limited to felony convictions. The revocation is mandatory for the Commissioner, and one year is the period fixed by subsection B.

When it is not a felony

Most hit-and-run cases in Virginia are not felonies at all. Where the property damaged was unattended — a parked car, a mailbox, a fence — the duties are in § 46.2-896 and the penalty is in § 46.2-900: a Class 1 misdemeanor generally, and a Class 4 misdemeanor where the property struck was unattended and the damage was less than $250. A Class 4 misdemeanor is a fine of not more than $250 with no jail, plus three DMV demerit points.

Where the property was attended but the damage came to $1,000 or less, § 46.2-894 itself makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor. The misdemeanor side of the hit-and-run ladder covers those three outcomes in detail, and the full penalty table puts all of them side by side. A charge at any of those levels reaches court as a leaving-the-scene case, whichever class it carries.

Whether a set of facts falls above or below either line is exactly the kind of question that decides a case, and it is one for a Virginia attorney who can see the charge, the damage estimate and the evidence — not for a general guide. What this page can say with confidence is what the Code says: injury, death, or more than $1,000 of damage to attended property is the felony branch, and everything else is not.