Pedestrian Accident Lawyer in El Monte

What do El Monte’s crash figures show for pedestrian accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, El Monte ranked 16th of 62 cities in its population group for pedestrians killed or injured, with 35 victims. Pedestrians under 15 ranked 22nd of 62 with four victims and pedestrians aged 65 and over 20th of 62 with five, so both the youngest and the oldest sit in the worse half of the group rather than at either extreme. The city’s wider position is harder: 8th of 62 for all people killed and injured in traffic, 10th of 62 for nighttime collisions with 59, and 1st of 62 for hit and run collisions with 80, which is the worst rank in its size group statewide. These are rate based rankings, weighting counts against population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they describe how El Monte compares with similar cities rather than any statewide raw total.

El Monte’s own Vision Zero Action Plan, published in February 2022 on collision data for 2008 to 2019, puts the pedestrian share in plain numbers. Of 1,543 collisions over those eleven years, 252 involved a pedestrian, and pedestrians or cyclists featured in 614 of them, which the plan records as 39.7 percent of the total. People on foot and on bikes are a small share of road users and close to two fifths of the collisions, which is why a pedestrian case is rarely a small one. The plan also maps a high injury network and places the worst concentrations at Peck Road and Lower Azusa Road in the north of the city and Peck Road and Garvey Avenue in the south. Those are historic figures, not current counts.

A pedestrian claim here usually turns on the physical scene rather than on vehicle damage: where the crossing was, whether it was marked, where the point of impact sat in the lane, what the lighting was, and whether a camera on a nearby business caught it. The El Monte Police Department investigates collisions on city streets and holds the report, and the City’s own FAQ requires you to attend the Police Lobby at 11333 Valley Boulevard in person to request it, with release generally in about ten business days and no charge. Footage near the scene is usually overwritten within days, so that canvass cannot wait for the report. Where the road itself contributed, through a missing or faded crossing, a signal fault, an obstructed footway or a sightline problem, the defendant may be the City, and the Vision Zero plan is the City’s own published record of where it had already identified risk.

Where is an El Monte pedestrian accident case filed, and what are the deadlines?

That changes the timetable, not only the defendant. Against a driver you have two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Against a public entity, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months, presented to the City Clerk’s Office at 11333 Valley Boulevard, City Hall E, on the form the Clerk’s Office posts, which asks you to draw a diagram of the place of the accident and must be signed under penalty of perjury. California is a pure comparative fault state, so an argument that you crossed where you should not have reduces a recovery in proportion rather than ending the claim. An unlimited civil injury case arising in El Monte is filed in the East District, at Pomona Courthouse South, 400 Civic Center Plaza, Pomona, because the El Monte Courthouse hears no civil matters.

There is more on the city on the El Monte personal injury page and more on the law on the wider Los Angeles pedestrian accident practice page. El Monte’s other collision pages cover car, bicycle and motorcycle 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 El Monte. This site also has a Spanish version, reachable from the Español link in the menu.