Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
What is different in Long Beach
We represent people hurt in a passenger vehicle crash inside Long Beach, and the family member handling the claim. Crashes with commercial trucks, people on foot and riders on bicycles each have their own page below, and broader questions start at our Long Beach personal injury lawyer page.
How dangerous Long Beach roads are
The Office of Traffic Safety ranks each city against cities of a similar size, using crash counts, Department of Finance population estimates and Caltrans daily vehicle miles traveled. Rank 1 is the worst rate in the group. Long Beach sits in the largest population group, which held fifteen cities in 2023, and it finished first in that group for total fatal and injury.
| Category | Killed and injured | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Total fatal and injury | 3,774 | 1 of 15 |
| Alcohol involved | 373 | 2 of 15 |
| Motorcycles | 182 | 2 of 15 |
| Pedestrians | 339 | 2 of 15 |
| Bicyclists | 213 | 2 of 15 |
| Composite | 1,921 | 2 of 15 |
The ranking already accounts for how much driving happens here: 460,545 residents and 3,673,130 daily vehicle miles. It also leaves out some of the worst crashes in the city. The Office of Traffic Safety states that "if a crash report is taken by the CHP on a road with shared jurisdiction, it does not count against the city." Every CHP collision on the 405 and the 710 inside Long Beach sits outside these figures.
Where you file and your deadlines
Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3 requires an unlimited civil action for bodily injury or wrongful death to be filed in the judicial district where the incident arose. Long Beach is the South District. A crash on Ocean Boulevard is not filed downtown at Stanley Mosk.
| Case type | Where it goes | Address |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited civil, more than $35,000 | Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse | 275 Magnolia Avenue, Long Beach 90802 |
| A crash on Santa Catalina Island | Catalina Courthouse, same district | 215 Sumner Avenue, Avalon 90704 |
| Claim against a city, the county or the state | Written claim to that entity first | Six months from the crash |
A statute of limitations is the outside date for filing suit, and nothing you send an adjuster pauses it. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an injury or a death. Government Code section 911.2 gives six months to present a written claim against a public entity, section 912.4 deems the claim rejected if the board does nothing for 45 days, and section 945.6 then allows six months to sue after a mailed rejection. Every other California injury deadline is in our table of California injury deadlines.
How fault is proved in Long Beach
The general law is the same in Long Beach as in Los Angeles, and our Los Angeles car accident lawyer page takes it apart section by section: Civil Code 1714(a), the following distance rule in Vehicle Code 21703, the basic speed law in Vehicle Code 22350, and the presumption a jury gets as CACI 418. What is local is the paperwork behind them.
Which agency wrote the report decides how you get it and how good it is. A crash on Anaheim Street, Atlantic Avenue, Ocean Boulevard or Pacific Coast Highway inside the city is a Long Beach Police Department report. A crash on the 405 or the 710 belongs to the California Highway Patrol, South Los Angeles Area, 19700 Hamilton Avenue in Torrance, an office whose own page says it "is home to the Port of Los Angeles, which is the busiest container port in the United States" and lists Long Beach among the communities it serves. Two agencies, two record systems, and the freeway office sits in another city.
The report is an officer's opinion written after the fact, and it binds nobody. Video is different, and it runs on a short clock: storefront cameras on Anaheim and Atlantic overwrite in days. We send preservation letters first. If the driver left the scene, our guide on hit and run accidents covers what your own policy does next.
Who pays in a freeway pileup
| Location | Route | Vehicles a day |
|---|---|---|
| I-405 at Atlantic Avenue | 405 | 277,000 to 295,000 |
| I-405 at Lakewood Boulevard | 405 | 277,000 to 284,000 |
| I-405 at Bellflower Boulevard | 405 | 265,000 to 277,000 |
| I-710 at junction with I-405 | 710 | 160,000 to 176,000 |
| I-710 at Long Beach Boulevard | 710 | 180,000 to 189,000 |
Those are Caltrans annual average daily traffic counts. Traffic at that density produces the crash that is hardest to sort out: the chain reaction, where four cars are damaged and every driver blames the one behind. Civil Code 1431.2, passed as Proposition 51, decides those files. Economic losses stay joint, so any one defendant can be made to pay the bills. Pain and suffering is split by percentage.
Where you are treated
Few California cities have two adult trauma centers inside the city limits. Long Beach does. MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center, 2801 Atlantic Avenue, 411 licensed beds, is Level II adult and Level II pediatric, and Miller Children's and Women's Hospital shares that campus. Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center, 1050 Linden Avenue, 360 beds, is also Level II. Both are on the California EMS Authority trauma center list updated October 22, 2025.
Local trauma care keeps the medical file in one place. The run sheet, the trauma admission, the imaging and the surgeon are all Long Beach records, so there is one set of billing and one set of liens to resolve. A lien is a right to be repaid out of your settlement, and Civil Code 3040 caps a health plan's lien at one third of what is due to you when a lawyer represents you. We get you treated first and sort out repayment at the end.
Five situations that change your claim
- The other driver carries $30,000 and nothing more. Since January 1, 2025 the state minimum under Vehicle Code 16056 is $30,000 for one person, $60,000 for a crash. One ambulance ride and one MRI can pass it, and then your own coverage is the case: see our guide on uninsured and underinsured motorist claims.
- The vehicle that hit you was a container truck on the 710. That is a federal safety regulation case with corporate defendants, and it belongs on our Long Beach truck accident lawyer page.
- You were on foot or on a bicycle. Long Beach ranks second of fifteen for both, and the statutes are different: see the Long Beach pedestrian accident lawyer and Long Beach bicycle accident lawyer pages.
- You owned the car and it was uninsured. Civil Code 3333.4, passed as Proposition 213, takes pain and suffering away from an uninsured owner or operator. The bills and the lost wages survive.
- The car that hit you was borrowed. Vehicle Code 17151 caps the owner's liability for merely lending it at $15,000 for one person. That cap disappears where the owner handed the keys to someone he knew should not have them.
- Insurer’s first offer
$31,500What we recovered$1,250,00040× the first offerRear-end crash, herniated disc
Hit at a stoplight by a texting driver on the job. Back surgery, then a real settlement.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case depends on its own facts, injuries, and insurance coverage. Amounts shown are gross recoveries before attorney's fees, costs, and medical liens.
All case resultsNext steps after a Long Beach crash
You have two years, or six months if a public agency is in it. Your case will be heard on Magnolia Avenue. Your records will come from a hospital a few miles from where you were hit, and your report from either the Long Beach Police Department or a CHP office in Torrance. The urgent work is the video on the block where it happened, and the treatment that starts the record.
Our headquarters are in Tarzana, and you do not have to make the drive. We handle the recorded statement and the adjuster, and we treat the first offer as a negotiating position.
Tell us where it happened and what the report says. We will tell you which deadline is running and what the case needs.