Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Glendale

What do Glendale’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, Glendale ranked 51st of 62 cities its size for bicyclists killed or injured, with 23 victims, which means better than most comparable cities. For bicyclists under 15 it ranked 62nd of 62 with none, the best figure in its group. Its total traffic victims placed 53rd of 62, with 593, and its speed-related collisions 55th of 62, with 74. These are rate-based rankings, adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare Glendale with cities of similar size rather than reporting raw statewide totals.

So no honest page about cycling in Glendale can open with a crisis. It can say something more precise. The one road-user category where Glendale is a genuine outlier is people on foot: 72 pedestrian victims put it 14th worst of 62, and 22 victims aged 65 and over put it 2nd worst of 62. Cyclists and pedestrians share the same conflict points, the same turning drivers and the same crossings, so a city that is unusually bad for older people on foot and unremarkable for cyclists is telling you that the risk here is concentrated at junctions rather than spread along the corridors. That is where a cycling investigation in Glendale is most likely to find something.

The practical consequence is that a Glendale cycling claim is built from documents rather than from a citywide argument. Glendale Police publish downloadable traffic collision files on the Department’s transparency pages, including quarterly reports for 2025 and a historical 2017 to 2024 series, which is the right place to look for what has happened at one junction over time. The bicycle itself is also evidence. Frame damage, wheel damage and the position of the marks on it often fix the geometry of the impact better than either account of it does, so it should be photographed and kept unrepaired until somebody has examined it.

Two parts of the Vehicle Code do most of the work in a California cycling case. Section 21760, the Three Feet for Safety Act, requires the driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle travelling in the same direction to pass at a safe distance, forbids passing within three feet of any part of the bicycle or its rider, and requires the driver to change lanes to pass where another lane in the same direction is available and it is practicable to do so. Where the driver cannot comply, subsection (d) requires slowing to a speed that is reasonable and prudent and passing only when that would not endanger the rider. Section 21212 requires a bicycle helmet only for riders under 18, so an adult riding without one has broken no law. Because California is a pure comparative fault state, the absence of a helmet is at most an argument about a share of the blame, and only where it bears on the injury actually suffered.

Where the road surface caused the crash, the question is who owns the road, and in Glendale that question has a real answer. 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. Everything else, the city streets, the bike lanes, the gutters, the grates and the signals, belongs to the City of Glendale, which runs its own police department, with the Records Bureau at 131 N. Isabel Street and a records line on 818-548-3135. A claim that a road itself was in a dangerous condition runs against the public entity that owned it, under Government Code section 835, and that entity has defences available to it, including the design immunity in section 830.6.

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

The deadlines split accordingly. Two years from the date of injury against a driver, under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Six months for a written claim against a public entity, under Government Code section 911.2, 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 about state-owned roadway 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 bicycle accident page. The other collision types with Glendale’s own published figures: car accidents, pedestrian 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.