Pedestrian Accident Lawyer in Glendale

What do Glendale’s crash figures show for pedestrian accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, Glendale ranked 2nd of 62 cities its size for pedestrians aged 65 and over killed or injured, with 22 victims. For pedestrians of all ages it ranked 14th of 62, with 72 victims. Pedestrians under 15 came in at 24th of 62, with 6. These are rate-based rankings, adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they say Glendale is worse than cities of similar size for people on foot rather than that it records California’s highest raw pedestrian count.

What makes those numbers worth stating twice is the contrast around them. In the same year Glendale ranked 53rd of 62 for total people killed and injured in traffic, 55th of 62 for speed-related collisions, 52nd of 62 for nighttime collisions and 51st of 62 for bicyclists, all of which means better than most comparable cities. On a composite of its categories it placed 60th of 62. So this is not a city with a general traffic problem that happens to catch pedestrians too. It is a city that performs well across the board and badly in one place, and the place it performs badly is older people crossing the road. Adjacent Pasadena ranks 1st of 62 in that same older-pedestrian category, which makes this a pattern across two neighbouring cities rather than a statistical accident in one.

For a claim, that contrast cuts in a useful direction. The common insurer line in a pedestrian case is that the person walked out, that this is simply what happens in busy traffic, and that the driver could not have avoided it. A city whose drivers are among the least likely in its group to be speeding, driving at night or driving after drinking, and which still injures older pedestrians at the second highest rate for its size, is not a city where that explanation does much work. The question becomes what it is about the crossings.

California law on that question is more favourable to a person on foot than most people expect. Vehicle Code section 21950(a) requires a driver to yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing within any marked crosswalk, or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, and subsection (c) requires a driver approaching a pedestrian in either kind of crosswalk to slow down or take whatever other action is needed to safeguard that person. Subsection (b) does say a pedestrian may not suddenly leave a place of safety into the path of a vehicle that is an immediate hazard, but subsection (d) makes clear that this does not relieve the driver of the duty of care. Even outside a crosswalk, where section 21954(a) puts the duty to yield on the pedestrian, subsection (b) keeps the driver’s duty of care intact. California is also a pure comparative fault state, so being partly responsible reduces a recovery rather than ending it.

The procedural side depends on where you were standing. Glendale runs its own police department, so a crossing on a Glendale street is a Glendale Police matter, with the Records Bureau at 131 N. Isabel Street and a records line on 818-548-3135. The 2, the 134 and the 5 are state highway routes defined by statute, Route 2 running by way of Glendale under Streets and Highways Code section 302, Route 134 through its vicinity under section 434 and Route 5 passing near it under section 305. Streets and Highways Code section 90 gives the Department of Transportation full possession and control of all state highways, and Vehicle Code section 2400(d) gives the California Highway Patrol primary jurisdiction for investigating traffic accidents on state highways built as freeways. So a crossing or signal that is part of a City street is a City matter, while a ramp or a state-owned stretch is a state matter, and the two go to different places.

Where is a Glendale pedestrian accident case filed, and what are the deadlines?

If a public entity is a potential defendant, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months, not the two years Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 allows against a driver, and the shorter deadline governs. A claim against the City is presented by delivery to the City Clerk or by post to the Clerk or the governing body at its principal office under Government Code section 915(a); the City Clerk’s office holds Glendale’s Claim for Damages Form, the City Attorney’s Office takes status enquiries on 818-548-2080, and the City says processing typically takes 9 to 12 weeks. A claim against the State goes to the Department of General Services under section 915(b). A filed case goes to the North Central District, at the Glendale Courthouse on 600 East Broadway or the Burbank Courthouse on 300 East Olive Avenue.

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