Visalia, CA, November 11 – A 75-year-old woman was hospitalized in critical condition after she was struck by a car while walking, according to Visalia police. Police said the woman was crossing a parking lot exit when a driver pulling out of the lot hit her. She was taken to the hospital for treatment following the crash. No further details have been released, and the investigation remains ongoing.
Visalia Woman, 75, Hospitalized in Critical Condition After Being Struck by Car
According to Visalia police, the crash occurred around 8:40 a.m. on November 11, 2026, on Akers Street south of Walnut Avenue. The woman had been walking south along a sidewalk on Akers Street before the collision. Police said the driver had been waiting for traffic to clear before beginning to pull out of the parking lot, at which point the vehicle struck the woman.
Following the crash, the woman was taken to the hospital for treatment, where Visalia police said she remained in critical condition. Authorities have not released her name or specified the extent of her injuries beyond that designation. It is unclear how long she is expected to remain hospitalized, as that information has not been made public.
The crash remains under investigation by Visalia police, and no additional details have been released about the driver or the vehicle involved. It has not been reported whether the driver will face any citations in connection with the crash. The cause of the collision and the woman’s current medical condition have not been confirmed as of this report.
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 January 1, 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.
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.
