Fresno, CA, September 24 – A Fresno police officer was injured when a northbound vehicle failed to stop and crashed into a stopped patrol car that was blocking traffic on Friant Avenue, according to Fresno police. The other driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to police. Emergency crews responded to the scene and worked to free the officer from the vehicle before taking the officer to a hospital. The extent of the officer’s injuries has not been released.
Fresno Officer Injured After Driver Strikes Stopped Patrol Car on Friant Avenue
The crash happened at about 11:15 p.m. on September 22 near the intersection of Friant Avenue and Lakeview Drive in Fresno. The Fresno police vehicle was stopped in the northbound lanes of Friant Avenue with its emergency lights activated when the northbound vehicle failed to stop and struck it, according to Fresno police.
Emergency crews responded to the scene and worked to extricate the officer from the damaged patrol vehicle before taking the officer to a hospital. The driver of the other vehicle was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and booked into the Fresno County Jail, according to Fresno police.
The extent of the officer’s injuries has not been made public, and it is not known whether the officer has since been released from the hospital. Fresno police have not disclosed the identity of the driver who was arrested, and no further details about the crash have been made available to the public.
What the at-fault driver is required to carry, and why it often is not enough
Vehicle Code section 16056 sets California’s minimum liability limits, and they changed recently. For a policy issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2025, the minimum is $30,000 for injury to or death of one person, $60,000 where two or more people are hurt, and $15,000 for property damage. Policies written before that date may still carry the older minimum of $15,000, $30,000 and $5,000.
Those are floors, not typical limits, and a single hospital admission can exhaust the lower figure before any other loss is counted. Where the at-fault driver carries the minimum, the uninsured and underinsured motorist cover on the injured person’s own policy is often the part that matters most, and it is worth checking early rather than after the other insurer has made an offer.
The deadline that applies to a claim like this one
Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. The same two years covers an injury claim and a death claim; there is no separate, shorter period because someone died.
If a public agency may be involved, the deadline is much shorter
Where a city, county, transit agency, school district or state agency is a potential defendant, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim to be presented to that entity within six months. The six months runs from when the claim accrues, and the claim is presented to the entity itself: a school district and a city are separate public entities with separate processes.
Two things follow that are easy to get wrong. The six months is the deadline to present the claim, not the deadline to sue, and it attaches to the public entity as a defendant rather than to the location of the crash, so a case with both a private and a public defendant is not entirely governed by it. Once the entity mails a written rejection, Government Code section 945.6 allows six months to file suit, which is shorter than the window that just closed. If no written rejection is ever sent, that period is two years from accrual.
Missing the six months is not automatically the end of it. Government Code section 911.6(b) requires the board to grant a late claim application on any of six grounds, including where the person was a minor, or was physically or mentally incapacitated, for the whole of the six months or for any part of it.
A claim against the City of Fresno is presented to the City Clerk, and the six months in Government Code section 911.2 applies to it.
Talking to someone about it
Culver Legal represents people injured in collisions across California. A conversation about what happened costs nothing, and we work on a contingency fee, which means there is no fee unless we win. If we do not win, we do not pass the case costs on to you either.
Nothing on this page is legal advice about any particular case, and the facts of a reported collision often change as the investigation continues.
