Yes, you can still go after the claim

If a driver backed out of a driveway in Gresham and hit you while you were walking on the sidewalk, the basic liability picture is usually pretty straightforward: the driver is the one with the problem.

Sidewalks are not driveways' personal merge lanes.

On roads like SE Stark, Burnside, Division, and the neighborhood streets feeding into them, drivers exiting a driveway are supposed to yield before crossing the sidewalk. If they rolled back or punched it without looking and clipped you, that is not some gray-area fender bender.

And the insurance company ghosting you does not erase the claim.

Here's what most people don't realize: you are not technically suing "the insurance company" for the crash. You sue the driver who hit you. The insurer hires the defense and pays within policy limits if the claim is covered. So when adjusters stop responding, that does not mean the case died. It means the talking stage is over and the pressure stage starts.

Silence is a strategy, not an accident

Insurers ignore pedestrian claims for a reason.

They think you'll get tired, go back to delivering packages, miss treatment, and let the clock run. For an Amazon Flex driver, that pressure gets ugly fast because missed work is immediate. No route, no money. No money, and suddenly that lowball offer or total silence starts to feel like a wall.

That's the game.

In Oregon, a personal injury claim generally has a two-year statute of limitations. If you were hit on the sidewalk in Gresham, the countdown started on the crash date, not when the insurer finally bothers answering. Ice storms can shut I-84 down for days and make half East County feel frozen in place, but the legal clock keeps moving.

What you are actually entitled to pursue

If you were walking to or from deliveries, or between stops, being an Amazon Flex driver doesn't cancel your rights as a pedestrian.

You can pursue compensation for:

• medical bills, wage loss, future treatment, pain and suffering, and damage to personal property like your phone or gear

That "pain and suffering" part matters more than insurers want you to think. Oregon voters have repeatedly rejected ballot measures to cap non-economic damages broadly in injury cases. So if this crash messed up your back, knee, shoulder, sleep, or ability to work normally, that damage is part of the claim. It's not just receipts and X-rays.

The part people mess up when the insurer goes dark

They stop documenting.

Bad move.

If you're being ignored, your file has to stay cleaner than the insurer's. Keep every voicemail log, every unanswered email, every letter, every bill, every urgent care note, every missed Flex block, every photo of the driveway, sidewalk, curb line, and vehicle position if you have them.

If there were Ring cameras on the house or nearby homes in a Gresham subdivision off Powell Valley or near Eastman Parkway, that footage matters. So do dispatch logs, delivery app timestamps, and geolocation data showing you were on foot where you said you were.

The insurer's silence becomes a lot less cute when the evidence is lined up and the driver is staring at a filed lawsuit.

Can you force the insurer to answer?

Not by begging.

What usually forces movement is a real deadline tied to real consequences. That can mean a formal demand with records attached, or it can mean filing suit before the statute runs. Once litigation starts, deadlines stop being optional. Adjusters hate that because now defense counsel is involved, discovery starts, and their "maybe he'll disappear" plan falls apart.

Oregon also has rules aimed at unfair claim settlement practices. Insurers are supposed to investigate and handle claims promptly. But for an injured person making a claim against somebody else's policy, the cleanest leverage is often still the underlying injury case against the driver.

That's why silence should be treated as a warning sign, not a final answer.

One more thing if they finally send an offer

You do not have to accept the first number just because they ignored you for months.

A delayed offer is often a cheap one. Insurers figure exhaustion will do their work for them. If your treatment is still ongoing, if you are still missing delivery income, or if nobody has accounted for future care, signing a release can be a brutal mistake. Once that release is signed, your future MRI, injections, or rehab bills can become your problem.

And if you had PIP available under the vehicle policy or another Oregon auto policy that applies to you as a pedestrian, that is separate from the full injury claim. A lot of people in Gresham leave that money untouched because nobody explained the difference.

If a driveway driver hit you on the sidewalk and the insurer has gone radio silent, giving up is exactly what they're hoping for. The claim is still there. The driver is still exposed. And the silence can make the insurer look worse, not better, once the case moves out of the adjuster's inbox and into an actual lawsuit.