One hundred and thirteen people on foot were killed or injured in Riverside in 2023, against 91 the year before. On the Office of Traffic Safety’s population-weighted and mileage-weighted rankings, that placed the city 9th worst of the 15 California cities with more than 250,000 people in 2023, against 12th of 15 in 2022.
If a city vehicle or a city street was involved in how you were hurt, your deadline is six months, not two years, and that is the single most useful thing to establish in the first week.
Hit while walking in Riverside?
Six months or two years, and the difference is not obvious from the crash. One conversation settles which one you are on.
Children on Foot Are the Sharpest Change in the Data
Pedestrian victims under the age of 15 rose from 7 in 2022 to 11 in 2023, and the city’s ranking in that category went from 11th to 6th worst of 15.
Those are small numbers and the page will not pretend otherwise: a change of four victims in a city of 321,538 people is not a trend on its own. What it does mean is that a claim involving an injured child is not unusual here, and a claim involving a child runs differently in two ways worth knowing now rather than later.
A child’s deadline is not the adult deadline. Under Code of Civil Procedure 352, the ordinary limitation period is paused while a person is under the age of majority. Subdivision (b) says the section does not apply to an ACTION against a public entity or a public employee on a cause of action for which a claim has to be presented. That is broader than it first reads: minority pauses nothing on this route, not the six months to present the claim and not the deadline to file the lawsuit afterwards. Where a public entity is involved and the six months has run, the route is the late-claim application below, and being a minor is one of the grounds on which it must be granted.
A settlement for a child needs a judge. Riverside Superior Court takes petitions for a minor’s compromise in its Probate division rather than in the civil case itself. An insurer cannot close a child’s claim by agreement alone.
What the Crosswalk Law Actually Says
Vehicle Code 21950 requires a driver to yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing within any marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise provided in that chapter of the code. That second half is the part that gets missed, and it is the reason “there were no painted lines” is not the answer an insurer treats it as.
Subdivision (c) puts an affirmative duty on the driver, and on a page about this city it is the important one. Approaching a pedestrian in any crosswalk, marked or unmarked, a driver must exercise all due care and must reduce the speed of the vehicle, or take whatever other action is needed to safeguard the pedestrian. In a city that ranks 5th worst of 15 for speed-related crashes, that is not a technicality.
The statute cuts both ways and the page will say so. Subdivision (b) requires a pedestrian not to suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle so close that it is an immediate hazard, and not to stop or delay traffic unnecessarily in a crosswalk. Subdivision (d) then says that pedestrian duty does not relieve a driver of the duty to exercise due care.
And an officer may not stop you for this. Subdivision (e)(1), the Freedom to Walk provision, bars a peace officer from stopping a pedestrian for a violation of this section unless a reasonably careful person would see an immediate danger of collision.
Being blamed in part does not end a claim. California reduces recovery by your share of responsibility rather than barring it. An insurer opening with fault is doing what insurers open with, and it is not a finding.
Where the Claim Goes If a Public Entity Was Involved
City Clerk’s Office, City of Riverside, 3900 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92522.
The City’s own claims page puts it plainly: under Government Code 911.2 and Chapter 1.05 of the Riverside Municipal Code, a claim for death or injury to a person must be presented within six months after the cause of action accrues. That is usually the date of the incident, and it is not always, which matters where an injury is discovered later. The City states it as six months from the occurrence. Claims for damage to real property and for money owed by the City run to one year, which is a different deadline for a different thing.
The claim can be filed online through the City’s portal, in person, or by US Mail. The Office of the City Attorney processes it, not the Clerk, and its number is (951) 826-5896.
Then the entity has 45 days. That comes from Government Code 912.4, not from the City’s own service target, and it matters because Government Code 945.4 bars a lawsuit for money damages until the claim has been presented and the entity has either acted on it or is treated as having rejected it. A claim the entity simply ignores is deemed rejected once the 45 days are up, which is what allows the lawsuit to proceed.
Not every public entity is the City. A county road, a school district bus, a transit agency vehicle or a state highway belongs to a different entity with its own claims process, and a claim sent to the wrong one does not stop the clock.
The Deadline Almost Nobody Is Told About
Presenting the claim is not the last clock. Once the entity mails or delivers a written rejection, Government Code 945.6 gives you six months from the date of that notice to file suit. That is shorter than the window you have just been through.
If the entity never sends a written rejection, the period is two years from when the cause of action accrued instead. So a claim that is ignored leaves more time than one that is formally rejected, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
If the Six Months Has Already Passed
Government Code 911.4 allows a written application to the entity for permission to present a late claim, within a reasonable time and no more than one year after the claim arose.
Government Code 911.6 then says the board shall grant that application on any of several grounds, including:
- Mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect, where the entity was not prejudiced in defending the claim by the delay.
- The injured person was a minor for the whole six months.
- The injured person was a minor for any part of the six months, where the application is made within six months of their eighteenth birthday or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first.
- The injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated for the whole six months and did not claim because of it.
- The injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated for any part of the six months and did not claim because of it, where the application is made within six months of the incapacity ending or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first.
- The injured person died before the six months expired.
If the entity refuses the application, or does not act on it within its own 45 days, Government Code 946.6 allows a petition to the court. That petition has to be filed within six months of the day the application was denied or deemed denied, and if the court grants relief, the lawsuit itself has to be filed within 30 days after that.
The one-year outer limit is firm for most people, and there is one exception worth knowing. Under Government Code 911.4(c), time during which the injured person is mentally incapacitated and has no guardian or conservator is not counted toward that year. Time during which they were a minor is counted. If more than a year has gone and nobody was ever appointed to act for the injured person, that is a reason to ask rather than to assume.
None of it is automatic. Time already lost is a reason to ask now rather than to assume it is over.
Getting the Collision Report
Riverside has its own police department, so the report comes from them rather than from the Sheriff or the Highway Patrol.
- $20.00 in person at the front counter, 10540 Magnolia Avenue, Suite B, Riverside, CA 92505. That is not City Hall and not downtown, which catches people out.
- Online for an additional $10.00 through the department’s LexisNexis eCrash service.
- A report involving a fatality, or an on-duty emergency vehicle, is not available online. It comes only from the Police Department. A family should not be sent to the online route.
- Reports are available about 10 working days after the incident. Worth knowing before assuming something has gone wrong.
- Released to parties involved, registered owners of vehicles involved, and representatives of involved parties with proper authorization.
- Records Bureau: (951) 826-5700, option 2. Mail requests need a check or money order payable to the City of Riverside.
Has the six months already gone?
There is a late-claim route, and for most people it runs out after a year. The sooner it is raised the better.
A Note on Speed, Because It Is This City’s Pattern
Riverside recorded 275 fatal and injury crashes in which speed was the primary factor in 2023. On the same population-weighted and mileage-weighted rankings, that placed the city 5th worst of the 15 California cities with more than 250,000 people. The year before it was 266 crashes and the same 5th place. It is the category where the city sits worst, and it has not moved.
That matters to a person on foot for a practical reason rather than a rhetorical one: speed changes what the injuries are, and it changes what an accident reconstruction is worth doing. Where a driver says they were going the limit, the physical evidence often says otherwise, and that evidence is easiest to secure early.
If a Case Is Filed
Many claims settle without anyone filing anything. If yours is filed, two things about Riverside Superior Court are worth knowing.
Electronic filing is mandatory for anyone represented by an attorney, under the court’s Local Rule 3118 and General Order 2022-1. Self-represented litigants may file electronically but are not required to.
Unlimited civil means a claim over $35,000; limited civil means $35,000 or less. That threshold decides which track a case runs on, and a serious pedestrian injury is very rarely a limited civil case.
Riverside Pedestrian Accident FAQs
How long do I have to bring a pedestrian accident claim?
Two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 where a private driver is responsible. Six months where a public entity is involved. If that six months has passed, Government Code 911.4 and 911.6 provide a late-claim route with a one-year outer limit.
I was crossing where there were no painted lines. Do I still have a claim?
Often yes, and here is why. Vehicle Code 21950 requires drivers to yield in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection exactly as in a painted one. Even where you were genuinely outside a crosswalk, California reduces recovery by your share of the blame rather than barring it, and the driver’s duty of due care does not disappear because of where you crossed.
My child was hit. Is anything different?
Yes, in two ways. Where a public entity is involved, being a minor is one of the grounds on which a late-claim application must be granted, so a missed six months is not necessarily the end. And any settlement for a child needs court approval, which Riverside Superior Court handles as a minor’s compromise in its Probate division rather than in the civil case.
What should I not tell the attorney?
Nothing. The conversation is confidential, and the facts that feel damaging, a previous injury, a gap before seeing a doctor, a share of the responsibility, are exactly the ones that need handling properly rather than hiding. They surface anyway and they are far easier to deal with early.
Can I be completely honest with my lawyer?
Yes, and you should be. Communications with your attorney are privileged. The practical risk runs the other way: a case damaged by a fact nobody knew about until the other side raised it is a common and avoidable problem.
Does my immigration status affect my claim?
No. Under Evidence Code 351.2, evidence of a person’s immigration status is not admissible in a civil action for personal injury or wrongful death, and discovery into it is not permitted either. It cannot be raised at trial and it cannot be asked about beforehand. It is not a question we ask you, and not one the other side gets to ask.
Contact a Culver Legal Riverside Pedestrian Accident Lawyer
One hundred and thirteen people on foot were killed or injured in Riverside in 2023, 9th worst of the 15 largest California cities. If a public entity was involved there is a separate six-month deadline to present a written claim to it, alongside the ordinary two years that applies to everyone else, and if that six months has passed there may still be a route. We speak Spanish. Call (310) 600-7881 at any hour. The review costs nothing.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Culver Legal, LLP is a California law firm. The information on this page is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
