Pedestrian Accident Lawyer in Long Beach

What do Long Beach’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, Long Beach ranked 1st of 15 cities in the state’s largest population group, meaning the worst in that group, for pedestrians under 15 killed or injured, with 30 victims. For pedestrians of all ages it ranked 2nd of 15, second worst, with 339 victims, and for pedestrians aged 65 and over 3rd of 15, third worst, with 43. The city is compared against California cities of more than 250,000 people rather than mid-sized suburbs, and in the same figures it ranked 1st of those 15 for total people killed and injured in traffic, with 3,774 victims. These rankings are rate based, adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so the accurate statement is that Long Beach is worse than comparable large cities for people on foot, not that it records California’s highest raw pedestrian count.

The City’s own plan makes the point more bluntly. Safe Streets Long Beach: A Vision Zero Action Plan, published in July 2020 on 2013 to 2017 data, says of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists together that these three travel modes account for only 14 percent of collisions but represent 65 percent of all traffic deaths and serious injuries. The plan’s endpoints show the trend: 24 fatal and 89 severe injury collisions in 2013, and 14 fatal and 148 severe injury collisions in 2017. A City Manager memorandum of 24 July 2023 recorded 45 traffic fatalities in 2022 against a stated goal of zero by 2026. That is why a pedestrian case is rarely a small one, and why an insurer’s early valuation is usually built before the full medical picture exists.

Long Beach has written down where people are struck, and the street then decides who you are claiming against. The Vision Zero plan builds a High Injury Network from five years of crash frequency and severity data and lists top corridors for people walking and cycling, among them Cherry Avenue from Anaheim Street to 19th Street, Pacific Coast Highway from Pacific Avenue to Temple Avenue, and Anaheim Street from Hayes Avenue to Ximeno Avenue. A City Manager memorandum of 24 July 2023 adds that 73 percent of the city’s high-injury intersections and 83 percent of its high-injury corridors are in disadvantaged communities. Pacific Coast Highway carries State Route 1 through Long Beach, so that roadway is the state’s rather than the City’s, while Cherry Avenue and Anaheim Street are City streets. Separately, Long Beach is one of only six California jurisdictions authorised by Vehicle Code section 22425 to run speed safety cameras, with 18 published locations including stretches of Anaheim Street, Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach Boulevard, 7th Street and Pacific Avenue, a warning period from 7 October 2026 and citations from 7 December 2026.

The Long Beach Police Department investigates on City streets and also provides contract services to the Port of Long Beach, Long Beach Airport, Long Beach Transit and Long Beach City College, while the California Highway Patrol normally handles the freeways.

Where is a Long Beach pedestrian accident case filed, and what are the deadlines?

California is a pure comparative fault state, so the standard defence that somebody walked out unexpectedly reduces a recovery at most rather than ending the claim. The deadlines split: two years from the date of injury against a driver under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, but six months to present a written claim to a public entity under Government Code section 911.2, and the shorter deadline governs. The City of Long Beach takes claims at the City Clerk, 411 West Ocean Blvd, by post, in person or online, and publishes its claim form in English, Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog. Metro is a public entity too; Long Beach Transit is not a City department and is covered below. A case is filed where the incident arose under Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A), which for Long Beach means the South District at the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse.

More on local practice on the Long Beach personal injury page, and on the law itself on the Los Angeles pedestrian accident page. The other collision types with Long Beach’s own published figures: car accidents, bicycle accidents and motorcycle accidents. Mass tort claims are taken on for Long Beach residents as well, and those are set out on the mass torts page.