Motorcycle Accident Lawyer in Long Beach

What do Long Beach’s crash figures show for motorcycle accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, Long Beach ranked 2nd of 15 cities in the state’s largest population group, meaning second worst in that group, for motorcyclists killed or injured, with 182 victims. The context around that figure matters more to a rider than the figure itself. The same 2023 rankings put Long Beach 1st of those 15, the worst in its group, for total people killed and injured in traffic, with 3,774 victims, and 1st of 15 again for nighttime collisions between 9pm and 3am, with 485. Hit and run ranked 2nd of 15, with 496. The city is compared against California cities of more than 250,000 people, and the rankings are rate based, adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they establish that Long Beach is worse than comparable large cities rather than that it records the state’s highest raw counts.

The City’s own plan supplies the figure that explains why a rider’s case is almost never small. Safe Streets Long Beach: A Vision Zero Action Plan, published in July 2020 on 2013 to 2017 data, says of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists together that these three travel modes account for only 14 percent of collisions but represent 65 percent of all traffic deaths and serious injuries. A rider meets the same traffic as everyone else with none of the protection a car gives. Add the night ranking and the practical difficulty is clear: more of these crashes happen when there are fewer independent witnesses and the argument turns on lighting, conspicuity and relative speed.

The recurring problem in a motorcycle claim is assumption. Adjusters routinely treat a rider as having been speeding or splitting lanes recklessly and attach a high comparative fault percentage before anybody has examined the evidence. Lane splitting is lawful in California, so the question is never whether it happened but whether it was done at a reasonable speed in the conditions. Juries carry the same assumption, and both are answered the same way, with physical evidence: gouge and skid marks, the crush geometry on both vehicles, throw distance, the helmet and gear, and any camera that covered the junction. One Long Beach feature matters here. The city is one of only six California jurisdictions authorised by Vehicle Code section 22425 to operate speed safety cameras, with 18 published locations including stretches of Artesia Boulevard, Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach Boulevard, 7th Street, Anaheim Street and Second Street, a warning period from 7 October 2026 and citations from 7 December 2026. Under section 22425(e) no such camera may sit on a California state route, including freeways and expressways. Under section 22425(l)(4) photographic evidence that results in no notice of violation must be destroyed within five business days, while section 22425(l)(5) allows disclosure in response to a subpoena. If a camera watched your corridor, the window is days.

Where the road itself contributed, through a surface defect, a utility cut, gravel left after works or a signal fault, the defendant may be a public entity, and which one depends on the stretch of road. The Long Beach Police Department investigates on City streets and also provides contract services to the Port of Long Beach, Long Beach Airport, Long Beach Transit and Long Beach City College, while the California Highway Patrol normally handles the freeways the City’s Mobility Element names: the I-405, the I-710, the SR-91 and the I-605. Those, and Pacific Coast Highway where it carries State Route 1, are state roadways rather than City ones. The Port is run by the City’s own Harbor Department under the Board of Harbor Commissioners, so the entity behind it is the City of Long Beach.

Where is a Long Beach motorcycle accident case filed, and what are the deadlines?

California is a pure comparative fault state, so a share of blame reduces recovery rather than ending the claim. Deadlines split: two years against a driver under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, six months to present a written claim to a public entity under Government Code section 911.2, with the City taking claims at the City Clerk, 411 West Ocean Blvd. Cases are filed in the South District at the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse under Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A).

More on local practice on the Long Beach personal injury page, and on the law itself on the Los Angeles motorcycle accident page. The other collision types with Long Beach’s own published figures: car accidents, pedestrian accidents and bicycle accidents. Mass tort claims are taken on for Long Beach residents as well, and those are set out on the mass torts page.