Two deadlines decide most injury claims in Riverside, and which one applies to you has nothing to do with how badly you were hurt. Against a private person or company you generally have two years. Where a public entity is involved you have six months to present a written claim, and that is the one people lose.
Everything below is about telling those two apart quickly, and about what each of the common case types actually turns on.
Not sure which deadline applies to you?
It depends on who is responsible, and that is not always obvious. One conversation settles it.
What the Crash Data Actually Says About Riverside
The California Office of Traffic Safety ranks cities against others of similar size, on a method that weighs crash counts against population and miles driven. Riverside sits in the group of 15 California cities with more than 250,000 people, alongside Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, Bakersfield and Long Beach.
Speed is this city’s signature. Riverside recorded 275 fatal and injury crashes in which speed was the primary factor in 2023, and the Office of Traffic Safety ranked the city 5th worst of those 15 in that category. In 2022 the figure was 266 crashes and the rank was the same. It is the worst position the city holds, tied with one other category, and it has not moved.
Three other categories moved the wrong way between 2022 and 2023, all of them involving people outside a vehicle:
- Pedestrians killed or injured rose from 91 to 113, and the city went from 12th of 15 to **9th of 15**.
- Cyclists killed or injured rose from 46 to 62, from 13th to 11th of 15.
- Pedestrians under 15 rose from 7 to 11, from 11th to 6th of 15.
One number worth stating because it runs the other way: drink-driving improved sharply. Riverside was 1 of 15, the worst in its group, for drivers under 21 who had been drinking in 2022, and moved to 5th in 2023.
Two things about these figures worth stating plainly. The pedestrian and cyclist numbers count people killed or injured; the speed and hit-and-run numbers count crashes, which is a different unit. And the rankings exclude crashes on roads the city does not have jurisdiction over, which the Highway Patrol handles, so the real totals for the area are higher than these.
Common Riverside Injury Cases
- Motorcycle collisions, where the speed pattern above matters most, where the evidence that proves speed is gone within days, and where the lane splitting statute says far less than insurers claim.
- Car and other vehicle collisions, where fault is decided by the physical evidence rather than by either driver’s account. We cover those in detail on car accident claims in California.
- Pedestrian claims, where the crosswalk law says considerably more than insurers suggest, including a driver’s duty, approaching anyone in a crosswalk, to reduce speed or take whatever other action is needed to keep them safe.
- Slip, trip and fall claims, where the first question is who owned the ground, because a fall on a public sidewalk runs on six months rather than two years.
- Brain injury claims, where incapacity does not pause the six-month public entity deadline, and and where a late-claim route exists that is easy to miss.
- Construction site injuries, where the question is who other than your employer was involved, and where the law on suing a general contractor is more complicated than it looks.
- Truck and commercial vehicle claims, where the federal records that prove driver fatigue only have to be kept for six months.
Getting the Collision Report
If Riverside police took the report, it comes from their Records Bureau, and the details are worth having before you go rather than after.
- $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 and comes only from the Police Department. A grieving 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.
- They are released to the 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.
If the Highway Patrol took the report instead, because the road was under its jurisdiction rather than the city’s, the request goes to CHP. That is also why those crashes do not appear in the city rankings above.
The Deadline That Catches People Out
If a city, county, school district, transit agency or state body is involved in how you were hurt, there is a separate and much shorter step before any lawsuit.
City Clerk’s Office, City of Riverside, 3900 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92522.
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. The City states it as six months from the occurrence. Claims about real property and money the City owes run to a year instead.
Claims can be filed online through the City’s portal, in person or by US Mail, and the Office of the City Attorney processes them on (951) 826-5896.
The entity then has 45 days under Government Code 912.4, and Government Code 945.4 bars a lawsuit until the claim has been presented and the entity has either acted on it or is treated as having rejected it. A claim it ignores is deemed rejected once the 45 days are up.
And presenting the claim is not the last deadline. 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. If no written rejection is ever sent, the period is two years from accrual 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.
Not every public entity is the City, and this matters: a county road, a school district, a transit agency or a state highway each has its own claims process, and a claim sent to the wrong one does not stop the clock against the right one.
Has the six months already gone?
There is a late-claim route, and one of its deadlines starts on a day nothing arrives. Worth asking rather than assuming.
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 a year after the claim arose. Government Code 911.6 requires it to be granted on any of six grounds:
- 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.
- The injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated for the whole six months and did not present a claim because of it.
- The injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated for any part of the six months and did not present a claim because of it.
- The injured person died before the six months expired.
The two “any part of it” grounds carry their own deadline. The application has to be made within six months of the person turning eighteen, or within six months of the incapacity ending, or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first.
And the one-year outer limit is not absolute. 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. In most cases, time during which they were a minor is counted.
If the entity refuses, Government Code 946.6 allows a petition to the court within six months of the day the application was denied or deemed denied, and if the court grants relief the lawsuit has to be filed within 30 days after that.
“Deemed denied” is the trap. The board has 45 days to decide, and if it does nothing the application is treated as denied on that 45th day. The six months to petition the court then starts running from a date on which nothing arrives in the post.
If the application is granted instead, the claim is treated as presented and the ordinary sequence resumes from there: the entity considers it, and the deadlines above pick up again.
A minor’s deadline is not the adult one, and the two routes differ. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary two-year period while a person is under the age of majority or lacks legal capacity. Subdivision (b) says the section does not apply to an action against a public entity or public employee on a cause of action for which a claim has to be presented, so on that route nothing is paused.
Riverside Personal Injury FAQs
How long do I have to bring a claim?
Two years from the injury under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 against a private person or company. Six months to present a written claim where a public entity is involved. If that six months has passed there is a late-claim route with a one-year outer limit, and that limit is paused while an incapacitated person has nobody appointed to act for them.
How much do personal injury lawyers charge?
On a contingency basis, which means a percentage of the recovery and no fee at all if there is no recovery. Case costs are advanced rather than billed to you as they arise, and are repaid out of the recovery at the end. If there is no recovery, you are not charged those costs either. There is nothing to pay to have a case looked at, nothing to pay while it runs, and nothing to pay if it does not succeed. The percentage is set out in a written fee agreement before anything starts, and that agreement is worth reading rather than skimming.
Is it worth suing for personal injury?
That turns on two things that can be assessed quickly: whether the injury needed real treatment, and whether responsibility can still be proved. Many claims never reach a courtroom, so the practical question is usually not whether to sue but whether an insurer’s offer reflects what the injury actually cost. A review is free and tells you which situation you are in.
What should I not say to a personal injury lawyer?
Nothing is off limits, and the instinct to hold something back is the thing to resist. A previous injury, a gap before seeing a doctor, a share of the responsibility: those are the facts that need handling properly rather than hiding. They surface anyway, and they are much easier to deal with early.
The insurance company says I was partly at fault. Does that end my claim?
No. California reduces recovery in proportion to your share of responsibility rather than barring it, so being partly to blame reduces a claim rather than ending it. Insurers open with fault arguments because people assume the opposite and stop.
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 Personal Injury Lawyer
Riverside ranked 5th worst of the 15 largest California cities for speed-related crashes in 2023, and people on foot and on bicycles are being hurt in greater numbers than the year before. If a public entity was involved there is a separate six-month deadline to present a written claim, alongside the ordinary two years. 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.
