Car Accident Laws in Connecticut (2026)

Connecticut's most consequential highway for auto accident litigation is not a numbered interstate — it's the Merritt Parkway, Route 15, the Depression-era limited-access road that runs 37 miles through Fairfield County from Greenwich to Trumbull with stone bridges built to individual architectural designs, no trucks permitted, and a divided roadway that was never intended for the traffic volumes it now carries. The Merritt's curves, limited sight lines, narrow ramps, and absence of modern guard rail systems at numerous points generate a disproportionate share of Fairfield County's serious accident litigation. A second geography dominates Connecticut accident claims: the I-95 corridor from Greenwich through Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven, and into New London, serving as both the major freight route and the primary commuter artery for Connecticut's Gold Coast — arguably the most congested stretch of interstate in the northeastern United States during morning and evening rush hours. These two roads share a common thread: Connecticut Department of Transportation infrastructure that requires a procedural framework to challenge, a modified comparative fault system that assigns proportional blame when negligence is shared, and a two-year statute of limitations (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-584) that begins running from the date the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have discovered that the injury was caused by the defendant's negligence.

Automotive insurance in Connecticut operates under mandatory minimum liability requirements — $25,000 per person, $50,000 per occurrence, and $25,000 for property damage under CGS § 38a-335 — and a mandatory uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage requirement that sets Connecticut apart from states where UM/UIM is optional. CGS § 38a-336 requires Connecticut auto policies to include UM/UIM coverage at least equal to the liability limits unless the insured expressly waives in writing, and the statute creates a stacking framework — the Connecticut Supreme Court in Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Pasiak, 327 Conn. 225 (2017), addressed the complex interaction between anti-stacking provisions and the § 38a-336 mandate. Connecticut is not a no-fault state: the traditional tort system governs, fault must be established, and the modified comparative fault rule under CGS § 52-572h bars recovery entirely if the plaintiff's own negligence equals or exceeds 51% of total negligence — but allows proportional recovery if the plaintiff is 50% or less at fault, with the damages reduced by the plaintiff's percentage of fault.