Injury claims in Los Angeles County, California

I take injury cases from Los Angeles County. This page covers what the state's crash record says about the county, which court a case from here is filed in, and what changes when the defendant is the county itself. This is general information, not legal advice.

The county's record, 2023 and 2024

Officers reported 212,052 crashes in Los Angeles County across the two years. Those crashes killed 1,645 people and injured 119,102. The split was 104,249 in 2023 and 107,803 in 2024.

• 7,802 involved a pedestrian
• 4,099 involved a bicycle
• 6,023 involved a motorcycle
• 16,257 involved a commercial truck, 9,157 of them a tractor-trailer
• 60,161 were recorded as hit-and-run

The most common kind of crash was rear-end (67,803 reports) , then sideswipe (56,640). The Vehicle Code section officers cited most often was Veh. Code, § 22350 — driving faster than was safe for the conditions — which is not the same as breaking the posted limit, and is why a driver can be at fault for speeding at 30 in a 35. 35% of crashes were recorded in darkness or at dusk.

These are counts of reported crashes. They are not adjusted for population or for how much people travel, they say nothing about fault in any crash, and a small difference between two figures is ordinary variation rather than a finding.

Where in the county

The reports name 90 incorporated cities in Los Angeles County. About 17% of the county's crashes were recorded outside any incorporated city — unincorporated county, where the roadway is usually the county's own responsibility rather than a city's.

The 20 cities with the most reports are shown; 70 more are in the data.

842 junctions in the county carry enough reported crashes to rank and could be confirmed by two independent sources. The Los Angeles County junction list .

Where a Los Angeles County case is filed

In the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, in the ordinary case. Code of Civil Procedure section 395 makes the county where the injury happened a proper court for the action, and the county where a defendant resided when the action was filed is a proper court too — so where a driver from one county hits someone in another, there is a real choice to make, and it is not always obvious which way to go.

The crash reports themselves name a court district, and in Los Angeles County the ones appearing most often were Los Angeles Superior Court Metropolitan Courthouse, Los Angeles Superior Court West Covina Courthouse, Los Angeles Superior Court Compton Courthouse, Los Angeles Superior Court Downey Courthouse and Los Angeles Superior Court Van Nuys Courthouse West. That is the district for the traffic matter on the report. It is not a determination of civil venue and an injury case does not have to follow it, but it does show which courthouses actually serve this county.

The forms a California injury case starts with · how long a claim takes · why cases sit for years.

When the defendant is the county or a city inside it

A pothole, a signal stuck on the wrong phase, a bend with no warning sign, a crosswalk painted to nowhere — these point at a public entity, and they run on a different clock. A claim for injury against a public entity must generally be presented to the entity within six months of when the cause of action accrued. It is delivered or mailed to the clerk, secretary or auditor of the entity, or to its governing body at its principal office, and some entities now accept it electronically if their own ordinance says so.

Two things people get wrong about this. It is not a lawsuit, so filing in court does not satisfy it. And the two-year deadline everyone has heard of does not rescue a missed six months — once the claim is late, the route back is an application for leave to present a late claim, and then a petition to the Superior Court if the entity refuses.

Claims against a government entity in California · premises and dangerous conditions.

Trauma care in Los Angeles County

The county has 15 designated trauma centres.

• Antelope Valley Medical Center — adult Level II
• Cedars-Sinai Medical Center — adult Level I
• Children's Hospital Los Angeles — paediatric Level I
• Dignity Health California Hospital Medical Center — adult Level II
• Dignity Health Northridge Hospital Medical Center — adult Level II
• Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center — adult Level II
• Harbor-UCLA Medical Center — adult Level I
• Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital — adult Level II
• Huntington Memorial Hospital — adult Level II
• Los Angeles General Medical Center — adult Level I , paediatric Level II
• MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center — adult Level II , paediatric Level II
• Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center — adult Level II
• Providence Holy Cross Medical Center — adult Level II
• Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center — adult Level I , paediatric Level II
• St. Francis Medical Center — adult Level II

Which one you were taken to matters to a claim, because that is where the first imaging, the first operative note and the first record of your complaints all live — and those records carry more weight in an injury case than almost anything else.

Your medical records in an injury claim · liens and reimbursement.

Cities in Los Angeles County with their own page

• Los Angeles — 55,448 reported crashes, 656 killed, 31,642 injured
• Long Beach — 14,208 reported crashes, 81 killed, 8,203 injured
• Pomona — 4,525 reported crashes, 59 killed, 2,651 injured
• Glendale — 3,937 reported crashes, 11 killed, 2,020 injured
• Pasadena — 3,773 reported crashes, 14 killed, 2,718 injured
• Lancaster — 3,683 reported crashes, 57 killed, 3,399 injured
• Santa Clarita — 3,566 reported crashes, 16 killed, 2,096 injured
• Palmdale — 3,131 reported crashes, 39 killed, 2,265 injured
• Torrance — 2,255 reported crashes, 14 killed, 1,571 injured

Common questions

Which court hears an injury case from Los Angeles County?

The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. Code of Civil Procedure section 395 makes the county where the injury happened a proper court, and so is the county where a defendant lived when the action was filed — so there is sometimes a genuine choice between two counties.

The county or a city in it may be at fault. What is the deadline?

Six months, and it is not a deadline to sue — it is a deadline to present a written claim to the entity itself. A claim for death or injury to person must generally be presented within six months of when the cause of action accrued, delivered or mailed to the clerk, secretary or auditor of the entity, or to its governing body. Missing it is usually fatal to the claim even though the ordinary deadline to file suit is two years.

Do these figures tell me whether a road is dangerous?

No. They are counts of reported crashes over two years, not rates. They are not adjusted for how many people travel, and a county with more people will report more crashes without being more dangerous. They are a record of what was reported, nothing more.

Sources: crash counts from the California Crash Reporting System (CCRS), California Highway Patrol, 2023 and 2024 exports, retrieved 2026-09-02 (method and limitations). Trauma centre designations from the California Emergency Medical Services Authority, "California Designated / ACS Verified Trauma Centers", updated 25 August 2025. Venue: Code Civ. Proc., § 395 (amended Stats. 2002, ch. 806, § 8). Government claims: Gov. Code, § 911.2 (six months to present), § 915 (how and where to present; amended Stats. 2020, ch. 371, § 7), § 911.4 (leave to present a late claim) and § 946.6 (petition for relief).