Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Burbank

What do Burbank’s crash figures show for bicycle accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, Burbank ranked 39th of 62 cities its size for cyclists killed or injured, with 17 victims. That is toward the better end of its group and we are not going to dress it up as a crisis. Burbank ranked 17th of 62 for traffic victims overall, so cycling is one of the categories where the city does better than its own general record rather than worse. The rankings are rate-based, adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare Burbank with cities its own size rather than counting raw crashes.

The sharper figure comes from the City itself. The Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan, adopted on 12 August 2025 by Resolution No. 25-29,639, found that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists were involved in just 24 percent of Burbank’s injury collisions between 2018 and 2022 but 64 percent of the collisions that killed or seriously injured somebody. Cyclists are a small share of road users and a large share of the severe harm, which is why a bike case here is rarely a minor case. The plan names bicycle collisions at intersections among its key trends, finds that intersections are the most common crash site in Burbank across every mode, and concentrates 80 percent of fatal and serious injury crashes on the 16 percent of streets it calls the Focus Network, with nine priority corridors on Glenoaks Boulevard, Victory Boulevard, Alameda Avenue, Hollywood Way, Vanowen Street, San Fernando Boulevard, Buena Vista Street and Olive Avenue. Burbank Police logged 28 bicycle collisions in 2025 and 11 in the first five months of 2026, up 10 percent on the same period.

Two things follow for a cyclist’s claim. The liability argument is almost always about position and right of way rather than speed, and it is won on physical evidence: the damage pattern on the bike and on the vehicle, the lane markings, whether a bike lane was present or obstructed, and any camera covering the junction. A bike is often repaired or scrapped within days, so it should be preserved rather than fixed. Second, where the road surface contributed, through a pothole, a drain grate, a utility cut or an obstructed lane, the defendant may be the City of Burbank rather than a driver. Burbank runs its own police department, so the report comes from Burbank Police, bought online through the LexisNexis eCrash portal at least four days after the crash or collected at the Records Bureau counter at 200 N. Third Street. Confirm the counter fee on (818) 238-3000 first, because the City publishes two different figures, $20.00 and $15, on two pages of its own police department website. Camera footage is a separate request again, to City Traffic Engineering on (818) 238-3953.

Where is a Burbank bicycle accident case filed, and what are the deadlines?

A City defendant changes the timetable completely. Against a driver you generally have two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Against the City of Burbank or a BurbankBus vehicle, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months and the shorter deadline governs. Burbank’s Claim for Damages is filed with the City Clerk at P.O. Box 6459, Burbank, CA 91510, and the City also accepts it by email, which many cities do not. California is a pure comparative fault state, so a share of the blame reduces a recovery rather than ending it, which is where a helmet argument lands rather than at the threshold. Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A), effective 1 January 2026, puts the case in the judicial district where the incident arose, which for Burbank is the North Central District, at the Burbank or Glendale courthouse.

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