San Jose, CA, October 5 – According to the California Highway Patrol, a three-vehicle collision on northbound Interstate 280 killed one person on Monday morning. Reporting puts the crash at around 5:41 a.m., just north of State Route 87, and it involved a gray Toyota RAV4 plus two other vehicles. Traffic on the northbound freeway was disrupted for much of the morning while the crash was cleared.
San Jose three-vehicle crash on northbound I-280 leaves one dead
Firefighters were called to the scene, where the gray Toyota was blocking the roadway. The person inside the Toyota was unconscious when discovered, and that person’s death was later confirmed. The victim’s identity was not immediately released. The information released so far does not describe any injuries to occupants of the other two vehicles.
Lanes 1 through 3 in the northbound direction were shut down, and traffic was redirected off the freeway at Bird Avenue. A tow was also requested for evidence purposes. The RAV4, which showed moderate damage on its left rear, was later removed from the scene. Around 9:20 a.m. the northbound lanes were fully open again, although debris from the vehicles was still in the median.
The circumstances that led to the three-vehicle crash remain under investigation. Nothing in the available reporting explains how the collision unfolded or where each vehicle was positioned beforehand, and no cause has been announced. No details about the other two vehicles’ drivers, or about how they were involved, have been made 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.
Who is entitled to bring a claim when someone is killed
Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 decides who may bring a wrongful death action. The first group is the surviving spouse, domestic partner, children and the issue of deceased children, or, where there is no surviving issue, whoever would take the estate by intestate succession.
A second group may bring the action only if they were financially dependent on the person who died: a putative spouse and their children, stepchildren, parents, and the legal guardians of the person who died where the parents are deceased. Parents are in that second group, which is the part families are most often surprised by, because dependency has to be shown rather than assumed.
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.
