Long Beach personal injury lawyerLong Beach crash? Now you have lawyers too.

Hurt in Long Beach? What happens now

We represent people hurt in Long Beach and the families of people killed there. A claim here turns on venue, deadlines, the state's crash record for the city, where you are treated and who writes the report. If you were hurt west of the harbor, read our Torrance personal injury lawyer page.

Nearly every claim here runs on negligence, the rule that a person who fails to use ordinary care answers for the injury it causes. Civil Code section 1714(a) states the rule, with the exception the other insurer relies on, for injury the hurt person brought on themselves.

What makes a Long Beach case different

The worst crash record of any large city we serve

Long Beach ranks 1 of 15 for total fatal and injury crashes and 2 of 15 for alcohol, motorcycles, pedestrians, bicyclists and the composite measure, in a population group made up of California's largest cities. Those are rates, adjusted for population and vehicle miles, not raw counts.

The 710 is a freight corridor, and freight cases are different

Truck traffic joins the 710 at successive interchanges as it leaves the port, and the Caltrans counts climb with it. A collision with a commercial truck brings federal safety regulations, hours of service records, weight and inspection files, and often a motor carrier, a broker and a shipper as separate defendants. Our port and drayage truck accidents guide covers how those files are pulled.

Children on foot and on bikes

Thirty pedestrians under 15 and eighteen bicyclists under 15 were killed or injured in Long Beach in 2023, ranked 1st and 2nd worst in the group. A child's claim runs on the same negligence rules but a different clock: the deadline is generally paused during childhood, though not against a public entity.

Where a Long Beach case is filed

Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) governs venue. Every unlimited civil action for bodily injury, wrongful death or damage to personal property "must be filed in the judicial district where the incident arose." The courthouse follows the crash, not your address. For Long Beach that produces a clear answer: the case stays in Long Beach.

That assignment comes from the court's filing locator searched for Long Beach 90802, and the addresses from Local Rule 2.2(b). Court assignments change. Verified September 4, 2026.

A statute of limitations is the deadline to file suit. Miss it and the case ends on the calendar rather than on the merits. Section 335.1 gives two years for injury or death caused by another's wrongful act or neglect. A government claim is the written claim you must present before suing a public agency, and Government Code section 911.2(a) gives six months. The rest are in our table of California injury deadlines.

Hit by a truck on the 710?

Caltrans' current published annual average daily traffic counts trace the 710 as it moves inland from the harbor. The freeway carries 113,000 vehicles a day at Shoreline Drive, 126,000 at Anaheim Street, 145,000 at Willow Street, 176,000 at the 405 interchange and 189,000 at Long Beach Boulevard. The I-405 counts are larger still, 295,000 a day at Atlantic Avenue and 284,000 at Lakewood Boulevard. All come from the Caltrans traffic census dataset.

A volume that climbs steadily in one direction is the signature of a freight corridor: trucks joining at successive interchanges rather than local traffic circulating. Below the freeways, Pacific Coast Highway crosses the city east to west, Ocean Boulevard runs the shoreline, and Anaheim Street and Atlantic Avenue carry heavy arterial traffic through neighborhoods with a large bike network and a state university.

How dangerous are Long Beach streets?

The Office of Traffic Safety ranks each city against others in its population group using crash counts, Department of Finance population estimates and Caltrans daily vehicle miles. Rank 1 is the worst rate in the group. Long Beach is in Group A, the state's 15 largest cities, with a population of 460,545 and 3,673,130 daily vehicle miles.

One caveat applies to those ranks in either direction. 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." Collisions the Highway Patrol works on the 710 and the 405 are therefore largely outside these totals. The worst rate among California's largest cities is a count of city street crashes, and the freeway exposure sits on top of it.

Where you are treated in Long Beach

MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center, 2801 Atlantic Avenue, is a Level II adult and Level II pediatric trauma center with 411 licensed beds. Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center, 1050 Linden Avenue, is a Level II trauma center with 360 beds. MemorialCare Miller Children's and Women's Hospital shares the Atlantic Avenue campus with 357 beds. Designations come from the California EMS Authority list updated October 22, 2025, and bed counts from the state facility file.

Two adult trauma centers inside one city is rare among the places we serve, and it means most Long Beach injuries are treated and followed up locally. That keeps the chart in one or two systems. A hospital that treats you without payment asserts a lien, a right to be paid out of the recovery before you are. Resolving those liens is much of the difference between the settlement figure and what reaches you.

Who has your Long Beach crash report

The CHP South Los Angeles Area says it "primarily serves the southernmost part of Los Angeles County and is home to the Port of Los Angeles, which is the busiest container port in the United States." It lists Long Beach among the communities it serves, along with Torrance, Carson, Gardena and Compton. A freeway crash here produces a CHP report from Hamilton Avenue in Torrance, not a Long Beach police report.

Who pays beyond the driver's policy

Being partly at fault does not end a California claim. Under comparative fault, a jury assigns each party a percentage and your recovery is reduced by yours, with no cut off. Against a child on foot or on a bike, that argument is weaker than insurers suggest, and the physical evidence of where the child was and how fast the vehicle was moving usually decides it.

Policy limits, the most an insurer will pay under a policy, work differently here. A private car may carry the state minimum, while a commercial truck leaving the port usually carries a federally required commercial policy many times larger, plus a motor carrier and a broker with their own coverage. Finding every policy is often worth more than any argument about the crash itself.

What to do next in Long Beach

1. 1
   Treatment first

   We get you to the right doctors, on a lien if you have no coverage, and keep the care continuous. A gap in treatment is the first thing an adjuster argues.

2. 2
   Preserve the freight file

   On a truck case, a preservation letter goes out immediately for the driver logs, the electronic data, the maintenance file and the dispatch records, before the retention period runs out.

3. 3
   The demand, then filing

   A demand is the written package of records, bills, wage loss and liability proof that starts the negotiation. If the number comes back wrong, we file at the Deukmejian Courthouse inside the two year deadline.

Our headquarters are in Tarzana, and you do not have to come to it. Most of a case runs by phone, text and email, and we take the calls from the other insurer, including the recorded statement request.

In Long Beach we have case type pages for car accidents, pedestrian accidents, truck accidents and bicycle accidents, the four this city's data calls for. For other case types the Los Angeles pages carry the law that applies: car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, catastrophic injuries and wrongful death.

The firm's attorney profile is on the attorney page, outcomes on case results, and client statements on reviews. Nearby we also serve Torrance, Anaheim and Santa Ana; the rest are on the locations page.