Car Accident Lawyer in Torrance

What do Torrance’s crash figures show for car accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, Torrance placed 32nd of 62 cities its size for total people killed and injured in traffic collisions, with 647 victims. That is squarely mid-table. Speed-related collisions ranked 44th of 62 with 70, and nighttime collisions, which OTS counts between 9:00pm and 2:59am, ranked 34th of 62 with 60, both toward the better half of the group. 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 measuring raw volume.

One figure stands well clear of the rest, and it is a good one. For hit-and-run fatal and injury collisions Torrance recorded 7 in 2023 and ranked 62nd of 62, meaning the best record of every city its size in the state. That is worth stating plainly rather than burying, because it is checkable and because it is unusual in this county. The practical consequence for a car accident claim here is that you almost always have an identified driver with an insurer behind them, so the argument is about fault percentage and about what the injury is worth, not about tracing someone who left. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy still matters, because a minimum California policy runs out fast against a serious injury, but it is less often the whole case in Torrance than in cities where hit and run is common.

Torrance has its own municipal police department, so a collision on a city street is normally investigated by the Torrance Police Department. The report comes from the Records Division at 3300 Civic Center Drive, at a published price of $1.00 by check or money order payable to the City of Torrance. The Department does not publish its counter hours, so confirm them with Records on (310) 618-5529 before travelling there. Collisions on the 405 or the 110 are normally California Highway Patrol matters instead, which changes who holds the report.

Who owns the road matters as much as who wrote the report. 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. On those corridors the roadway is a state highway rather than a City street, which can put a different public entity in the frame for a signal fault or a surface defect. Where the City of Torrance is a potential defendant, including a Torrance Transit bus, the written claim goes to the City Clerk’s Office at 3031 Torrance Blvd. within six months under Government Code section 911.2, and the City’s own form states that the Clerk is the only department able to accept it, by mail or in person only.

Where is a Torrance car 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. The ordinary deadline against another driver is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) sends an unlimited civil injury or wrongful death case to the district where the incident arose, which for Torrance is the Southwest District, 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 car accident page. The other collision types with Torrance’s own published figures: pedestrian accidents, bicycle 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.