Pedestrian Accident Lawyer in West Covina

What do West Covina’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, West Covina ranked 43rd of 62 California cities its size for pedestrians killed or injured, with 22 victims. That is toward the better end of its group. Pedestrians under 15 ranked 58th of 62, with no victims recorded at all, close to the best in the group and worth saying plainly rather than leaving out. The city’s overall position is similar, 30th of 62 for total people killed and injured with 438 victims. These are rate-based rankings weighted against population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare West Covina with cities of its own size rather than counting crashes.

One figure does not follow that pattern. Pedestrians aged 65 and over ranked 18th of 62, with 6 victims, the only pedestrian measure on which West Covina is worse than the middle of its group. Older pedestrians cross more slowly, are hurt more severely by the same impact, and are the group an insurer is most likely to accuse of stepping out unexpectedly. Small numbers move a rank a long way, so that is a pattern worth knowing rather than a crisis.

West Covina publishes no Local Road Safety Plan and no Vision Zero plan on its city website, so no municipal high injury network names the crossing where you were hit. Two city documents still matter. The Highway Safety Improvement Program project the city applied for on 1 November 2020, “Traffic Signal Improvements at 10 Intersections, Citywide”, carries $3,184,700 the city records as “State funds with no local matching requirement” and a scope that is largely pedestrian work: countdown heads, push buttons, curb ramps and striping at ten named junctions, among them Sunset at Merced and Hollenbeck at Cameron. No collision counts were published beside them. The city’s daylighting page explains that “safety is improved by removing parked cars next to crosswalks” and gives the restriction as within 20 feet of the approach side of any marked or unmarked crosswalk and within 15 feet of a curb extension or fire station. A car parked into that zone at your crossing is something the city has itself published a standard about.

West Covina has its own police department rather than a Sheriff contract, so a collision on a city street is investigated by West Covina Police and the report sits with their Records unit at 1444 W. Garvey Avenue, (626) 939-8500, open Monday to Friday 7:30am to 5:30pm. Reports can be asked for at the counter or by email to reportrequest@wcpd.org, with no charge at the counter and, in the department’s own words, an “additional $10.00 for online reports”. Interstate 10, the San Bernardino Freeway, crosses the city and is a state facility, so an incident on that roadway is normally a California Highway Patrol matter and the roadway is the state’s rather than the city’s.

Where the crossing itself is part of the problem, through signal timing, missing markings, a sight line blocked by a parked car or a defective push button, the defendant may be the City of West Covina, and that changes the timetable rather than just the name. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months, and the city’s own form requires it to be “delivered personally to the City Clerk’s Office or postmarked and addressed to the City Clerk’s Office not later than six months after the occurrence”. That office is at 1444 W. Garvey Avenue South, Room 317, on (626) 939-8433, and it is closed on Fridays while the police records counter in the same building is open. The city’s claim page opens by asking you to be sure you are filing with “the appropriate entity”, which matters in a city also served by Foothill Transit, Metrolink and county services.

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

Against a driver the deadline is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, and where the six-month public entity claim applies it governs. California is a pure comparative fault state, so the standard defence that a pedestrian stepped out suddenly reduces a recovery at most rather than ending it. Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) requires an unlimited civil injury or wrongful death case to be filed in the judicial district where the incident arose and points the filer to the Court’s Filing Court Locator, which for West Covina addresses returns Pomona Courthouse South, 400 Civic Center Plaza, in the East District.

More on this city is on our West Covina personal injury page, and the wider practice on our Los Angeles pedestrian accident page. West Covina’s other collision pages cover car, bicycle and motorcycle claims. If your matter is a drug, device or product claim rather than a collision, Broukhim Legal PC also takes on mass tort and complex litigation work for people living in and around West Covina.