Two separate offenses, two separate counts
| Statute | What it covers | Level |
|---|---|---|
| VC 23152 | Driving under the influence, no injury | Misdemeanor (felony on priors or with other factors) |
| VC 23153 | DUI causing injury to another person | Wobbler — misdemeanor or felony |
| VC 20002 | Leaving the scene, property damage only | Misdemeanor |
| VC 20001 | Leaving the scene of an injury or fatal collision | Wobbler; higher term where death or permanent serious injury resulted |
Fleeing is not a lesser included part of the DUI. It is its own charge with its own elements — knowledge that a collision occurred, and failure to stop and identify — and prosecutors routinely file both.
What it does to bail
County bail schedules list an amount per count. A felony DUI-with-injury count plus a felony hit-and-run count produces a scheduled total well above either. Add enhancements for multiple victims or a prior and the number climbs again. See how bail is calculated.
Flight itself is also an argument the prosecution will make at a bail hearing: leaving the scene is, on its face, evidence of a willingness to avoid consequences. That is the argument a defense attorney has to answer, and it is one reason early counsel matters here more than in an ordinary first-offense DUI.
If the collision involved injury
Injury changes everything: the charge level, the potential exposure, and the likelihood the case is filed as a felony. Our DUI with injury article covers the bail side of VC 23153 specifically. Where a death resulted, the case may be filed as vehicular manslaughter or, with a prior DUI and a Watson advisement in the record, as murder — a category where bail is a different conversation entirely.
Can the hit-and-run count come off?
Sometimes. Restitution to the property owner, a genuine dispute about whether the driver knew a collision occurred, and identification problems are the usual paths. We wrote about that separately in can hit-and-run charges be dropped. None of that is bail advice — it is why you want a defense attorney working the case while the bond keeps the person out.