Motorcycle Accident Lawyer in Torrance

What do Torrance’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, Torrance ranked 40th of 62 cities its size for motorcyclists killed or injured, with 29 victims, which puts it toward the better end of its group. We are not going to dress that up as a crisis. The wider picture is much the same: 32nd of 62 for total people killed and injured with 647 victims, 44th of 62 for speed-related collisions with 70, and 34th of 62 for nighttime collisions, which OTS counts between 9:00pm and 2:59am, with 60. These are rate-based rankings adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare Torrance with cities of its own size.

One Torrance figure changes the shape of a rider’s claim, and it is a good one. The city recorded 7 hit-and-run fatal and injury collisions in 2023 and ranked 62nd of 62, the best record of every city its size in the state. For most road users that is simply reassuring. For a motorcyclist it is more specific than that: the problem in a serious rider claim is rarely a driver who cannot be found, and in Torrance it almost never is. The problem is that rider injuries routinely exceed a minimum California policy. So the recovery usually depends on underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy, which pays the gap between the at-fault driver’s limit and your own, rather than on uninsured motorist coverage reaching an unidentified driver. That policy needs reading in the first weeks, because its notice requirements can be far shorter than any statutory deadline.

Bias is the other half of the problem, and it shows up in two places. Adjusters routinely assume the rider was speeding or lane splitting recklessly and assign a high comparative fault percentage before anyone has examined the evidence, and juries carry the same assumption. Lane splitting is lawful in California, so the question is whether it was done at a reasonable speed in the conditions, not whether it happened. Both are answered the same way: with the gouge and skid marks, the damage geometry, the helmet and protective gear, and any camera footage, gathered before it disappears. California is a pure comparative fault state, so a share of the blame reduces what you recover rather than ending the claim, and the percentage is argued on that evidence rather than set by the adjuster who proposed it.

Who investigated and who owns the road both matter. A collision on a Torrance street is normally investigated by the Torrance Police Department, whose Records Division at 3300 Civic Center Drive sells the report for a published $1.00 by check or money order payable to the City of Torrance; the Department does not publish counter hours, so confirm them on (310) 618-5529. The 405 runs through Torrance and is normally a California Highway Patrol road, which changes who holds the report. Pacific Coast Highway through the city 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 a state highway rather than a City street.

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

Where the road put you down, through gravel left after works, a utility cut, a surface defect or a signal fault, the defendant may be a public entity and Government Code section 911.2 then requires a written claim within six months instead of the two years available against a driver under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. For the City of Torrance that claim 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 one and that claims can only be received by mail or in person, with email and fax not accepted. Cases are filed in the Southwest District under Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A), 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 motorcycle accident page. The other collision types with Torrance’s own published figures: car accidents, pedestrian accidents and bicycle accidents. Mass tort claims are taken on for Torrance residents as well, and those are set out on the mass torts page.