West Puente Valley, CA, October 20 – A two-vehicle crash left one person dead on Tuesday evening in West Puente Valley, according to California Highway Patrol logs. The collision was reported at approximately 5:48 p.m. on October 20 at the intersection of Amar Road and Millbury Avenue. CHP logs show the vehicles involved were a white Mercedes-Benz and a black BMW, though further details about the crash were not immediately available.
West Puente Valley Crash at Amar Road and Millbury Avenue Leaves One Dead
Tow trucks were requested to remove the two vehicles from the intersection. One flatbed tow truck was dispatched to the scene shortly before 6 p.m., according to CHP dispatch logs, roughly ten minutes after the crash was first reported. No further information about the emergency response has been made available.
The CHP log reviewed for this report did not indicate a cause for the collision, and it did not note any citations or arrests. Whether speed, impairment or any other factor played a role was not addressed in the available log information. It also did not specify how many people were inside each vehicle at the time of impact.
The identity of the person killed has not been released, nor has information about the other occupants, if any, in either vehicle. It is not known whether the victim was a driver or a passenger. The California Highway Patrol had not released additional details about the crash as of the time 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 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.
