Misdemeanor Hit and Run in Virginia: The Three Classes

Most Virginia hit-and-run charges are misdemeanors, and there are three different ones. Which applies depends on whether the property struck was attended or unattended and on how much damage was done: Va. Code § 46.2-894 makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor where attended property is damaged by $1,000 or less, and § 46.2-900 makes it a Class 1 or a Class 4 misdemeanor for unattended property.

When a hit and run is a misdemeanor in Virginia

Virginia has four classes of misdemeanor, numbered 1 to 4, with Class 1 the most serious. Three of the four appear somewhere in the hit-and-run article, and none of them is reached by guesswork: each is tied to a specific set of facts.

Situation	Section	Class
Attended property damaged, $1,000 or less, no injury	§ 46.2-894	Class 1 misdemeanor
Unattended property damaged, $250 or more	§§ 46.2-896, 46.2-900	Class 1 misdemeanor
Unattended property damaged, less than $250	§§ 46.2-896, 46.2-900	Class 4 misdemeanor, plus 3 demerit points
Willful failure to give immediate notice of an accident causing injury or death	§ 46.2-371	Class 4 misdemeanor

Anything involving injury or death, or more than $1,000 of damage to attended property, leaves the misdemeanor range entirely and becomes a felony under § 46.2-894.

Class 1 misdemeanor under § 46.2-894: attended property

Section 46.2-894 covers accidents in which a person is killed or injured, or in which an attended vehicle or other attended property is damaged — someone was in the car, or with the property, at the time. The driver must stop immediately as close to the scene as possible without obstructing traffic, report his name, address, driver’s license number and vehicle registration number, and render reasonable assistance to anyone injured.

The final paragraph of the section makes a violation a Class 1 misdemeanor where “the accident results in damage of $1000 or less to property.” That is the commonest attended-property case: a low-speed collision in traffic with no injuries and modest damage, where the driver did not stop.

Class 1 misdemeanor under § 46.2-900: unattended property from $250

Where nobody was hurt and the only damage was to an unattended vehicle or other unattended property, the duties sit in § 46.2-896 instead — make a reasonable effort to find the owner, leave a note with identification and contact information if the owner cannot be found, and report the accident in writing within 24 hours to the State Police or the local law-enforcement agency.

The penalty for breaching that section is in § 46.2-900, which provides that where the accident “results only in damage to property,” the person convicted is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. That is the default for unattended property, and it applies at $250 of damage and above. Which of the two sections you are reading is settled by the attended and unattended split in the Code.

Class 4 misdemeanor: under $250, and three demerit points

Section 46.2-900 then carves out the smallest cases. Where “the vehicle or other property struck is unattended and such damage is less than $250,” the offense is a Class 4 misdemeanor — the least serious criminal class in the Code of Virginia. The same sentence adds a consequence the other classes do not carry: a motor vehicle operator convicted of a Class 4 misdemeanor under this section “shall be assigned three demerit points by the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

This is the honest answer to whether scraping a parked car and driving off is a felony in Virginia. Where the damage is genuinely under $250, it is not a felony and it is not even a Class 1 misdemeanor. The practical duties after hitting a parked car are what decide whether a charge follows at all. DMV lists the violations it scores at three points, which is a separate record from the court’s.

A separate Class 4 misdemeanor for failing to give notice

Section 46.2-371 sits outside the hit-and-run article and imposes its own duty: the driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to or the death of any person, or someone acting for the driver, must immediately give notice of the accident to a law-enforcement officer. A willful failure to make that report is a Class 4 misdemeanor.

The word willful matters, and so does the trigger. The duty arises only where there is injury or death, not on property damage alone, and the offense is a failure to notify rather than a failure to stop. Section 46.2-898 confirms that the hit-and-run reports are in addition to the other accident reports Title 46.2 requires, so complying with one section does not discharge the other.

What each misdemeanor class carries

The punishments come from § 18.2-11, which applies across the whole Code:

Class	Punishment under § 18.2-11
Class 1 misdemeanor	Confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both
Class 2 misdemeanor	Confinement in jail for not more than six months and a fine of not more than $1,000, either or both
Class 3 misdemeanor	A fine of not more than $500
Class 4 misdemeanor	A fine of not more than $250

A Class 4 misdemeanor carries no jail at all — it is a fine-only class. A Class 1 misdemeanor is a criminal conviction that can carry jail, and it is the same class Virginia uses for reckless driving and for driving on a suspended license.

On a summons the charge will normally be written as failure to remain at the scene rather than “hit and run”, and which subsection it names is settled by reading the article section by section.

Two other points are worth holding on to. The duties apply on private property as well as public roads, under § 46.2-899, so a parking-lot collision is covered. And a passenger aged 16 or older who knew about an accident the driver did not report has a duty of his own under § 46.2-895 and § 46.2-897, punished under § 46.2-900 on the same scale. The full penalty table puts the felony and misdemeanor outcomes side by side. Where a particular charge falls on that ladder depends on the damage figure and on what was attended, and that is a question for a Virginia attorney with the file in front of them.