Motorcycle Accident Lawyer in Glendale

What do Glendale’s crash figures show for motorcycle accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, Glendale ranked 50th of 62 cities its size for motorcyclists killed or injured, with 27 victims, which means better than average. Its total traffic victims placed 53rd of 62, with 593, its speed-related collisions 55th of 62, with 74, and its nighttime collisions 52nd of 62, with 51. For alcohol-involved victims it ranked 62nd of 62, the best figure of all 62 cities in its group. 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.

A rider gains nothing from a page that inflates those numbers. The useful point is different. Twenty-seven motorcycle victims out of 593 total traffic victims is a small share of the collisions and a disproportionate share of the serious harm, because a rider has no cage, no restraint and no crumple zone. So the fight in a Glendale motorcycle case is almost never about whether the city is dangerous. It is about two things: the share of blame an insurer tries to put on the rider, and whether there is enough insurance to cover what a rider’s injuries actually cost.

On the second point the arithmetic is unforgiving. For policies issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2025, Vehicle Code section 16056 sets California’s minimum liability limits at $30,000 for injury to one person and $60,000 for two or more in one accident. A single orthopaedic surgery and a short stay can exhaust that, and a rider with a brain or spinal injury passes it in the first week. That is why the early work in these cases includes finding every policy that might respond, including the rider’s own uninsured and underinsured motorist cover.

The two arguments a rider meets are both answerable, and both are governed by statute. Lane splitting is lawful in California. Vehicle Code section 21658.1, added by Assembly Bill 51 in 2016, defines lane splitting as riding a two-wheeled motorcycle between rows of stopped or moving vehicles in the same lane, on divided and undivided roads alike, and authorises the Highway Patrol to develop educational guidelines about it. The statute creates no offence. An adjuster who treats splitting as automatic fault is asserting something the Vehicle Code does not say. Helmets are the other argument, and here the law goes the other way: section 27803 requires a driver and any passenger to wear a safety helmet meeting the requirements of section 27802 when riding on a motorcycle on the highways, with the helmet fastened and fitting securely. California is a pure comparative fault state, so even where a rider was not helmeted, or was splitting carelessly, a share of the blame reduces a recovery rather than ending it.

Which road you were on decides who investigates and who owns the surface. Glendale runs its own municipal police department, so a crash on a city street is a Glendale Police matter, with the Records Bureau at 131 N. Isabel Street and a records line on 818-548-3135. 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. Vehicle Code section 2400(d) gives the Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol full responsibility and primary jurisdiction for investigating traffic accidents on state highways built as freeways, and Streets and Highways Code section 90 gives the Department of Transportation full possession and control of all state highways. So a freeway crash in Glendale produces a CHP report on a state-owned road, while a crash on a Glendale street produces a Glendale Police report on a City-owned one.

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

That split matters most when the road itself put the bike down, which happens to riders far more often than to drivers. Gravel, a ridge at a repair joint, a sunken utility cover or a sudden change of surface is a dangerous condition claim under Government Code section 835 against the entity that owned the road, and that entity has defences available to it, including the design immunity in section 830.6. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months, against the usual two years under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, 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 motorcycle accident page. The other collision types with Glendale’s own published figures: car accidents, pedestrian accidents and bicycle accidents. Mass tort claims are taken on for Glendale residents as well, and those are set out on the mass torts page.