Pedestrian Accident Lawyer in Torrance

What do Torrance’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, Torrance ranked 29th of 62 cities its size for pedestrians of all ages killed or injured, with 43 victims. That is the middle of its group and nothing out of the ordinary. For pedestrians under 15 the same year it ranked 5th of 62, with 8 young victims, which means 5th worst of 62 cities its size and the single worst category Torrance has. Pedestrians aged 65 and over sat at 14th of 62 with 9 victims. These are rate-based rankings adjusted for population and daily vehicle miles travelled, so they compare Torrance with cities of its own size rather than counting raw volume.

The gap is the point, and it is more useful than either number alone. A city with mid-table adult figures and nearly the worst in its group for children is not a city with a general walking problem. It is a city with a problem where children walk: crossings near schools and parks, the routes between them, and the hours children use them. That narrows the investigation usefully. The questions become sight lines, crossing markings, signal timing, speed on the approach and whether the driver was turning, at that location and at that time of day.

Torrance has its own municipal police department, so the report normally comes from the Torrance Police Department Records Division at 3300 Civic Center Drive, at a published price of $1.00 by check or money order payable to the City of Torrance. The Department publishes the list of people entitled to a report, and it includes a victim’s authorised representative, which is how a parent obtains the report when the injured person is a child. Counter hours are not published, so confirm them with Records on (310) 618-5529.

A pedestrian case is almost always on a surface street, but who owns that street still matters. Pacific Coast Highway through Torrance 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 the roadway there is a state highway rather than a City street. Where the City of Torrance is the potential defendant, for crossing design, markings or signal timing, the written claim goes to the City Clerk’s Office at 3031 Torrance Blvd. within six months under Government Code section 911.2. Torrance Transit is a City department, and because the City’s claim form says the Clerk is the only department able to accept a claim, a Torrance Transit injury goes to the Clerk and not to the transit offices on Madrona Avenue. Torrance Transit also serves stops outside the city, including Downtown Inglewood Station, so a claim arising on one of its buses is presented to the Torrance City Clerk even where the incident happened elsewhere.

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

Expect the driver’s insurer to argue that the person walked out. California is a pure comparative fault state, so even a successful version of that argument reduces a recovery rather than ending the claim. One thing a pedestrian struck in Torrance usually does have is a driver who stopped: 7 hit-and-run fatal and injury collisions in 2023, ranked 62nd of 62 and the best record of every city its size. The deadline is generally two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, or six months for a written claim against a public entity under Government Code section 911.2, in which case the shorter one governs. 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 pedestrian accident page. The other collision types with Torrance’s own published figures: car accidents, bicycle accidents and motorcycle accidents. Mass tort claims are taken on for Torrance residents as well, and those are set out on the mass torts page.