Personal injury
Pedestrian cases produce serious injuries and unusually aggressive fault arguments, because the driver is almost always the only person still standing to give an account. The consultation is free.
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Right of way
Vehicle Code 21950(a) requires a driver to yield to a pedestrian crossing in a marked crosswalk or in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. The unmarked crosswalk is the part people do not know: at most intersections a crosswalk exists in law whether or not anything is painted on the road, so a pedestrian crossing at a corner with no markings is usually in a crosswalk.
The duty does not switch off elsewhere. Vehicle Code 21950(c) states that the section’s provisions do not relieve a driver from the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian, and Vehicle Code 21954 says the same in the other direction: a pedestrian crossing outside a crosswalk must yield, but that does not relieve drivers of the duty of due care. In practice a driver who could have seen and avoided a pedestrian is frequently at least partly responsible even where the pedestrian crossed mid-block.
Sources: Vehicle Code 21950(a) — drivers must yield to pedestrians in a marked or unmarked crosswalk; Vehicle Code 21950(c) — a driver’s duty of due care regardless of right of way; Vehicle Code 21954 — a pedestrian outside a crosswalk must yield, but drivers still owe due care.
What changed
The Freedom To Walk Act, effective 1 January 2023, changed enforcement. Under Vehicle Code 21954(c)(1) and 21955(b)(1), an officer may not stop a pedestrian for crossing outside a crosswalk unless a reasonably careful person would realise there is an immediate danger of a collision with a moving vehicle. Both provisions expressly add that they do not relieve the pedestrian of the duty of due care for their own safety, nor the driver of the duty of due care for the pedestrian’s. So the yielding rules did not change; what changed is that a mid-block crossing is no longer a citable offense by itself, and the absence of a citation is a meaningful fact in a claim.
Sources: Vehicle Code 21954(c)(1) — an officer may not stop a pedestrian crossing outside a crosswalk absent immediate danger of collision (AB 2147, effective 1 January 2023); Vehicle Code 21955(b)(1) — the same limit between signal-controlled intersections.
Fault
California uses pure comparative fault, so a pedestrian found partly responsible recovers a reduced amount rather than nothing. Because the injuries in these cases are severe and the values high, insurers invest heavily in building a percentage: that the pedestrian was distracted by a phone, wearing dark clothing, intoxicated, or stepped out suddenly.
Those arguments are answerable with evidence rather than assertion. Signal timing data, the driver’s speed from event data recorders and from the physical evidence, sightline analysis, street lighting records, and whether the driver was on a phone are the material that decides these cases, and most of it has to be obtained quickly.
Children are treated differently. A child is held only to the standard of care of a reasonable child of the same age and experience, and a very young child is generally incapable of negligence at all, which makes comparative fault arguments against them much weaker.
Who is responsible
The driver is the usual defendant, but not the only one. An employer is liable where the driver was working, which includes delivery and rideshare drivers. A public entity can be liable under Government Code 835 for a dangerous condition of public property: a crossing with inadequate lighting, an obscured sightline, a missing or malfunctioning signal, a poorly designed intersection with a known collision history. Where a public entity is involved, a government claim is due within six months.
In a hit and run, the driver’s flight is an offense under Vehicle Code 20001, and the injured person’s own uninsured motorist coverage generally responds where the driver is never identified. That is a claim against your own insurer and it has its own, shorter deadlines.
Sources: Government Code 835 — public entity liability for a dangerous condition of public property; Government Code 911.2(a) — the six-month government claim deadline; Vehicle Code 20001 — hit and run causing injury or death.
The first weeks
Business, residential, traffic, and transit cameras near an intersection retain footage for days to a couple of weeks. In a pedestrian case that footage is frequently the only neutral account of what happened, and it is the single most time-critical item.
Bystanders scatter and often are not in the police report. Someone at the scene usually has names or video on a phone.
Pedestrian injuries commonly include fractures, head injuries, and internal trauma whose full extent emerges over weeks. Follow every referral, because gaps in treatment are the main argument insurers use on causation.
They will call early and sympathetically. A recorded statement given while injured and medicated is used afterwards to build the comparative fault percentage.
The office
The office has represented injured people in Long Beach and across Los Angeles County for nearly three decades. In a pedestrian case the early work is evidence preservation and an accurate reconstruction, because the fault percentage is where the value of the case is decided and it is argued from physical evidence rather than from the two accounts.
The firm has offices in Long Beach and Downey and speaks Spanish.
Frequently asked questions
Usually yes. At most intersections an unmarked crosswalk exists in law even with no paint on the road. And even outside a crosswalk, Vehicle Code 21954 and 21950(c) preserve the driver’s duty of due care, so a driver who could have seen and avoided you is often at least partly responsible. California’s pure comparative fault rule reduces recovery by your share rather than barring it.
The yielding rules in Vehicle Code 21954(a) and 21955(a) are unchanged. What changed with the Freedom To Walk Act in 2023 is enforcement: under Vehicle Code 21954(c)(1) and 21955(b)(1) an officer may not stop a pedestrian for it unless a reasonably careful person would realise there is an immediate danger of collision. Both sections add that the pedestrian still owes due care for their own safety and the driver still owes due care for theirs.
Your own uninsured motorist coverage generally responds to a hit and run, including where the driver is never identified, though most policies require prompt notice and some require reporting the incident to police within a short period. It is a claim against your own insurer and has its own deadlines, which are usually shorter than the two-year statute.
No. A child is measured against what a reasonably careful child of the same age, maturity and experience would do, and very young children are generally held incapable of negligence. Comparative fault arguments against children are correspondingly much weaker, and a minor’s claim also has different timing rules.
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