Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Torrance

What do Torrance’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, Torrance ranked 24th of 62 cities its size for cyclists killed or injured, with 36 victims. Set that beside its other 2023 figures and the shape of the problem is clear. Torrance placed 32nd of 62 for total people killed and injured with 647 victims, 44th of 62 for speed-related collisions with 70, and 40th of 62 for motorcyclists with 29. Cycling is the third worst category Torrance has, behind pedestrians under 15 at 5th of 62 and pedestrians aged 65 and over at 14th of 62. These are rate-based rankings adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare Torrance with cities of its own size rather than counting raw volume.

One figure works in a cyclist’s favour here, and it is worth saying rather than hiding. Torrance recorded 7 hit-and-run fatal and injury collisions in 2023 and ranked 62nd of 62, meaning the best record of every city its size in the state. Drivers who hit cyclists and leave are a familiar problem across much of this county. In Torrance that is the exception, so a cyclist usually starts with an identified driver and an insurer behind them. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy is still worth checking, because it generally follows you as a person rather than the car and can reach a collision while you were on a bike, but it is less often the whole claim in Torrance than elsewhere.

A cycling collision on a Torrance street is normally investigated by the Torrance Police Department, which runs its own Records Division at 3300 Civic Center Drive. The published price of a report is $1.00 by check or money order payable to the City of Torrance, with a request form and a copy of a government-issued ID, and the Department does not publish its counter hours, so confirm them on (310) 618-5529 before travelling there. Who owns the road is a separate question. Pacific Coast Highway through Torrance is State Route 1 and Hawthorne Boulevard is State Route 107, which Streets and Highways Code section 407 defines as running from Route 1 in Torrance to the southern city limits of Lawndale, so on those corridors the roadway is state-owned even though the collision happened inside the city. The 405 also runs through Torrance, and a cyclist is not lawfully on it.

Where the road itself contributed, through a surface defect, a drain grate, an abrupt lane drop or an obstructed bike lane, the defendant may be a public entity, and that changes the timetable rather than just the name on the claim. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months instead of the two years available against a driver. For the City of Torrance it goes to the City Clerk’s Office at 3031 Torrance Blvd., and the City’s own form states that the Clerk is the only department able to accept a claim and that claims can only be received by mail or in person, with email and fax not accepted. No local roadway safety plan or high injury network was locatable on the City’s Public Works, Engineering, Transportation or published-reports pages as of 4 October 2026, so the record of what the City knew about a location usually has to be built from its own maintenance, inspection and complaint files under the Public Records Act rather than lifted from a published map.

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

California is a pure comparative fault state, so a share of the blame reduces what you recover rather than ending the claim, and in a cycling case the argument is usually about position and right of way rather than speed. Cases are filed in the Southwest District, because Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) sends an unlimited civil injury or wrongful death case to the district where the incident arose, heard at the Torrance Courthouse at 825 Maple Avenue or the Inglewood Courthouse at One Regent Street.

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