Anaheim Car Accident Lawyer

Where Anaheim collisions happen

• The I-5 through the city, including the long-rebuilt stretch between the SR-91 and the SR-57, where lane configurations have changed repeatedly and drivers following older mental maps make late, abrupt moves.
• The SR-91, one of the most congested corridors in the region, carrying commuter traffic between Orange County and the Inland Empire with heavy truck volume mixed in.
• The SR-57, and its interchange with the I-5 and SR-22 at the Orange Crush just south of the city line.
• Harbor Boulevard through the resort district, where pedestrians cross constantly between hotels and the theme park entrances, many of them tired families with children, many unfamiliar with the crossings.
• Katella Avenue and Ball Road, wide arterials carrying both resort and event traffic, with high-volume left turns into hotel and parking entrances.
• State College Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue, the main north-south and east-west routes through the rest of the city.
• Beach Boulevard, State Route 39, along the western edge of the city.
• The streets surrounding Angel Stadium and Honda Center, which go from empty to saturated in about twenty minutes twice per event.

The resort district: pedestrians and out-of-town drivers

Harbor Boulevard and the surrounding hotel streets produce a distinctive claim profile, and two features of it matter more than anything else.

First, the pedestrian exposure is high and the victims are frequently children. California requires drivers to yield to pedestrians in marked and unmarked crosswalks under Vehicle Code section 21950, and prohibits passing a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk to let someone cross under section 21950(c), which is the mechanism behind a large share of multi-lane crosswalk collisions. For an injured child, the two-year deadline is tolled until the 18th birthday under CCP 352, and any settlement generally requires court approval with the funds held in a blocked account.

Second, the at-fault driver is often a visitor, which means an out-of-state insurer, frequently a rental car, and sometimes a driver who has already flown home before anyone takes a statement. Rental situations stack several possible coverages: the rental company's liability policy, the renter's own auto policy, a credit card benefit, and any supplemental liability product bought at the counter. Renters routinely have no idea which of those they purchased, so the paperwork needs to be obtained rather than described.

Event traffic and impaired driving

Angel Stadium, Honda Center and the convention center concentrate tens of thousands of people into a few streets in a short window. Post-event collisions have a few recurring characteristics worth knowing.

• Impairment is more common in the hours after an event, and it changes the case. Impairment makes liability very difficult to dispute, and conduct of that kind can support punitive damages under Civil Code section 3294. Those damages are generally not covered by insurance, so whether they add real recovery depends on the defendant's own assets.
• California's rules on alcohol-serving establishments are narrow. Business and Professions Code section 25602 generally immunizes a licensee for furnishing alcohol to an adult, with a specific exception under Civil Code section 1714 for serving an obviously intoxicated minor. A claim against a venue or bar is a real but limited pathway that should be evaluated rather than assumed.
• Temporary traffic control is everywhere after an event: cones, officers directing traffic, closed lanes and reversed flows. Where the control was set up improperly, there may be a claim against a contractor or a public entity, and the public entity route carries a six-month administrative claim deadline under Government Code 911.2.
• Witnesses are abundant and immediately gone. Collect names and phone numbers at the scene, because nobody will be findable in a month.

Truck traffic on the 91 and the 5

The SR-91 and I-5 corridors through Anaheim carry heavy freight between the ports, the Inland Empire distribution centers and the rest of Southern California. A collision with a commercial truck is a fundamentally different case from a collision with a car.

Interstate carriers hauling general freight must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage under 49 CFR 387.9, and are governed by federal safety regulations covering driver hours, maintenance, inspection and hiring. The evidence that proves a violation is electronic and perishable: electronic logging device records, engine control module data showing speed and braking, telematics, and dashcam footage that in many systems is only retained when an event trigger fires. Carriers also dispatch their own investigators to serious crash scenes within hours.

California adds its own rules on top. Trucks are restricted to the right-hand lanes under Vehicle Code section 21655, and a vehicle towing a trailer is limited to 55 mph under section 22406 even where the posted limit is 65 or 70. A loaded truck traveling at posted automobile speed is already in violation, and the same engine data that establishes the impact usually establishes the speed.

After an Anaheim crash

1. Call 911 for any injury. Anaheim Police handle city streets; the CHP handles the I-5, SR-57 and SR-91.
2. Get examined the same day. Anaheim Regional Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Anaheim serve the city, and the county's Level I trauma center is UCI Medical Center in Orange, with Children's Hospital of Orange County nearby for pediatric trauma.
3. File the DMV SR-1 within 10 days if anyone was injured or property damage exceeded $1,000.
4. If the other driver is a visitor, get far more than the minimum: their home address, their phone number, the rental agreement if there is one, and a photograph of their license and insurance card. They may be unreachable within days.
5. Photograph the crosswalk, signal and lane configuration in any pedestrian case. The geometry is the case.
6. Identify cameras. Harbor Boulevard hotels and resort-district businesses have extensive exterior coverage, typically overwritten within two to four weeks.