Motorcycle Accident Lawyer in West Covina

What do West Covina’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, West Covina ranked 24th of 62 California cities its size for motorcyclists killed or injured, with 25 victims. Of the Office of Traffic Safety’s main categories that is the city’s worst position, and it is still only a little worse than the middle of its group. For comparison, the city ranked 30th of 62 for total people killed and injured with 438 victims, 36th of 62 for speed-related collisions with 56, 43rd of 62 for pedestrians and 46th of 62 for cyclists. These are rate-based rankings weighted against population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare West Covina with similar sized cities rather than counting crashes.

There is no crisis to report, and the honest point is a different one. Twenty-five rider casualties against 438 in total, in a city where motorcycles are a small share of the traffic, is the familiar disproportion: a rider meets ordinary suburban arterial traffic with none of the protection a car gives. That shows up in the medicine rather than in the rank, and it is why a West Covina motorcycle claim is usually about severity and comparative fault rather than about whether a collision was likely.

The practical problem is bias. Adjusters routinely assume a rider was speeding or splitting lanes recklessly and assign a high comparative fault percentage early, before the report or the scene evidence has been looked at, 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 with physical evidence: gouge and scuff marks, the crush geometry on both vehicles, the throw distance, the helmet and the gear, and any camera that covered the junction. None of it improves with waiting, and the bike should not be repaired or released to a salvage yard until it has been documented.

Who investigates depends on where you went down. West Covina runs its own police department rather than contracting with the Sheriff, so a crash on a city street is a West Covina Police matter and the report is held at their Records unit, 1444 W. Garvey Avenue, (626) 939-8500, open Monday to Friday 7:30am to 5:30pm. Reports can be requested at the counter or by email to reportrequest@wcpd.org, with no charge at the counter and an “additional $10.00 for online reports” through LexisNexis eCrash. Interstate 10, the San Bernardino Freeway, crosses the city and is a state facility, and the stretch between Vincent Avenue and Grand Avenue, postmiles 35.392 to 38.509, is formally the West Covina Police Officer Kenneth Wrede Memorial Highway under Assembly Concurrent Resolution 104, Chapter 102, Statutes of 2006. A crash there is normally a California Highway Patrol matter on state-owned roadway, so both the report and any road defendant are different.

Road surface cases are where that distinction decides the claim. Gravel left after works, a utility cut, a lip at a lane edge or a signal fault is a nuisance in a car and a crash on two wheels. On a city street the defendant may be the City of West Covina, and Government Code section 911.2 then requires a written claim within six months rather than the usual two years. The city’s own Claim for Damages 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 is worth taking seriously where the surface may belong to the state, the county or Foothill Transit rather than to the city.

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

Against another 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 a percentage assigned to a rider reduces a recovery rather than ending the claim. 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 motorcycle accident page. West Covina’s other collision pages cover car, pedestrian and bicycle 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.