Clovis Personal Injury Attorney

Clovis police recorded 1,510 traffic collisions in 2024, a 3.7% rise over 2023, and 228 of them injured at least one person (GV Wire). The department’s own year-end list shows where those crashes cluster: six of the ten intersections with the most collisions sit on Shaw Avenue.

Below are the questions families tend to ask a Clovis personal injury attorney after a crash on Shaw, Herndon or SR-168, each answered from the city’s own records. Jump to yours or read in order.

Questions on this page

• Where do the most crashes happen?
• Which agency has my crash report?
• What changes during rodeo week?
• Which hospital will have my records?
• How does Clovis compare with other cities its size?
• How long do I have, and where would a case be filed?
• What does your firm do on a Clovis case?

Shaw Avenue and the annual crash list

The 2024 list

Each spring the Clovis Police Department publishes the intersections where officers responded to the most collisions the year before. The 2024 list reads like a drive along Shaw Avenue, with Herndon Avenue close behind (GV Wire):

Earlier years and the Costco entry

Shaw and Willow also topped the 2023 list, with 34 collisions that year. The 2023 ranking included Barstow and Villa and Bullard and Villa, tied for fifth at 16 crashes each, and Ashlan and Peach at 13 (KMPH). One entry is not an intersection at all: the Costco address on Clovis Avenue, where parking-lot entrances, turning traffic and pedestrians with carts meet.

What a crash history means for your claim

A location with a documented collision history tends to have exactly the evidence that settles disputed fault. Busy retail corners on Shaw have storefront cameras; signalized intersections have timing records; and repeat crashes mean the police department already knows the sight lines. When a client tells us the other driver ran the light at Shaw and Willow, the first thing we do is find out which cameras covered that corner that day.

Police reports and the Highway Patrol

A crash at a Shaw or Herndon signal, or on a residential street in town, is investigated by the Clovis Police Department, whose Traffic Unit also runs the DUI saturation patrols described below (GV Wire).

State Route 168 and the county roads just outside city limits are Highway Patrol territory; the CHP’s Fresno Area office on Fortune Avenue names Clovis in its service area and patrols more than 4,045 miles of state highway and county road (CHP Area 435). Higher up SR-168, the CHP’s Shaver Lake resident post handles collisions on the climb toward Shaver and Huntington lakes, a stretch where winter brings snow closures and chain controls (ABC30).

Because a snow-season crash near Shaver Lake and a fender-bender at a Herndon signal end up in different offices’ files, note these details before anyone leaves:

• Whether the officer was with Clovis police or the CHP
• The incident number, which you will quote on every insurance call
• A phone picture of the other car’s plate next to its owner’s insurance card
• Which cameras, at a store, a bus or a home doorbell, faced the spot where the cars met

Rodeo week and other seasonal risks

The Clovis Rodeo has run each spring for more than a century, and its 112th edition took place in 2026 (ABC30). Organizers expected about 10,000 people inside the gates in 2024, and police add uniformed and plainclothes officers to Old Town and promote rideshare options (ABC30). During the 2026 rodeo, Clovis police and state alcohol agents made 27 alcohol-related arrests (The 559 Brief).

Impaired driving is not limited to rodeo week. In late 2024, a 19-year-old suspected of DUI allegedly ran a red light at Gettysburg and Fowler avenues and broadsided another car; a woman in that car later died (ABC30). A December 2025 saturation patrol produced three DUI arrests and 36 citations for red-light and stop-sign violations, speeding and reckless driving (GV Wire).

An arrest at the scene starts a prosecution that the District Attorney controls. Your claim for medical bills and lost income is a separate civil matter, and it can rely on the arrest report, blood-alcohol results and citation to establish fault early.

Emergency care and medical records

Inside city limits, Clovis Community Medical Center’s emergency department handled 64,453 visits in fiscal 2022, so many people hurt on Clovis streets are first seen there (Community Medical Centers). Paramedics carrying someone with life-threatening injuries can drive past the Clovis emergency room and continue to Community Regional Medical Center, which runs a trauma program (Community Regional).

A patient moved from the Clovis emergency room to downtown Fresno ends up with two sets of charts, and both belong in the claim. The first chart describes your condition closest to the impact, and it is the record an adjuster tests everything else against.

How the city ranks statewide

Clovis landed 57th of 62 on the state’s 2023 composite crash scale for mid-size cities, where 1 is the worst, which puts it near the safest end of the group (OTS 2023).

Speed-related injury crashes, though, rose from 48 in 2022 to 70 in 2023, and the bicyclist count ranks well above the city’s overall standing, including three riders under 15 hurt that year. None of that reaches an individual claim. An adjuster who cites the city’s safety record to discount a fractured wrist from a Shaw Avenue crash is arguing about statistics, not about you.

Tip: If you were cycling, photograph the bike before it is repaired or thrown out, and keep the helmet. A cracked helmet shell and a bent fork are physical proof of how hard the car hit, which matters when a driver claims the rider swerved in front of him.

More questions we hear

The crash happened in the Costco lot on Clovis Avenue. Is that a car accident claim or a premises claim?

It can be either or both. A driver who backs into you is responsible as a driver, but a store can share responsibility if the lot’s layout, lighting or traffic control contributed. Photograph the area and ask the store, in writing, to keep its video.

The other driver’s insurer says Clovis streets are safe and my injuries can’t be serious. How do I respond?

The 57th-of-62 ranking counts crashes across all of Clovis; it does not measure the force that hit your car. Your medical records, the imaging and your doctor’s notes are what prove the harm, which is why consistent treatment from the first days matters.

I was hurt on SR-168 in the snow. Can the other driver blame the weather?

Weather does not excuse unsafe driving. California drivers must slow down for conditions, and chain controls on 168 put drivers on notice. The question is whether the other driver adjusted to the road.

My son was hit on his bike near our house. Does the two-year deadline apply to him?

Children’s claims are timed differently from adults’, but that extra time does not stretch the six-month notice owed to the City of Clovis if a street defect or a city vehicle played a part, and neighbors’ memories of the crash fade far sooner than any deadline.

My crash was at Shaw and Willow, the top spot on the police list. Does that help?

It helps with evidence more than with fault. A corner with that many collisions tends to have:

• Store and traffic cameras that may have recorded the crash
• City signal-timing logs for the minutes around the crash
• Prior police reports showing how drivers approach the intersection

Fault still turns on what each driver did that day.

Deadlines and the Fresno courthouse

Clovis Transit is fare-free for riders through Measure C funding (FAX), and a free ride does not change the six-month deadline for an injured passenger.

Shared fault shrinks a California claim rather than defeating it, so a driver found 25% responsible for a left turn at Herndon and Villa still recovers 75% of proven losses (CACI 405).

Watch out: There is no civil courthouse in Clovis itself; a lawsuit from here is heard on O Street in downtown Fresno. The Sisk building is where the county court hears both limited and unlimited civil matters (Fresno Superior Court). Most claims settle well before a trial date is set.

How Call Jacob represents people hurt in Clovis

We represent Clovis residents, commuters and visitors hurt at Shaw Avenue intersections, along Herndon and Clovis avenues and on SR-168 toward the mountains. On a typical Clovis case, our first requests go to the Clovis Police Department’s Traffic Unit or the CHP Fresno Area for the report, to Clovis Community or Community Regional for the emergency records, and to the businesses whose cameras face the crash site.

The cases we handle here follow the city’s crash list: car accidents at signalized intersections, rear-end and parking-lot collisions, drunk-driving crashes, bicycle accidents, pedestrian injuries in Old Town, motorcycle and truck crashes on SR-168, injuries on Stageline buses, rideshare collisions after rodeo nights, slip-and-fall injuries at stores, dog bites and wrongful death claims.

A first meeting with The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani (Call Jacob) is free, and our fee is owed only if we recover compensation for you. Call (888) 952-2952 and a Clovis car accident attorney on our team will walk through the Clovis PD or CHP report with you, or type the details into the case evaluator if that is easier. If driving is hard after the crash, a representative will come to your home or hospital room; Spanish-language help begins at calljacob.com/es.

Shaw Avenue statistics and the deadlines above are offered as background; they are not legal advice for your crash.

Sources

1. Clovis crash list 2024 — GV Wire
2. Clovis crash list 2023 — KMPH
3. Clovis 2023 — OTS
4. Saturation patrol — GV Wire
5. Area 435 — CHP
6. Valley snow and rain — ABC30
7. CCMC facts — CMC
8. Trauma program — CRMC
9. 112th rodeo — ABC30
10. Rodeo patrols — ABC30
11. Rodeo arrests — The 559 Brief
12. Gettysburg and Fowler crash — ABC30
13. CCP §335.1 — Legislature
14. Gov. Code §911.2 — Legislature
15. Stageline schedule — FAX
16. CACI 405 — Justia
17. Court locations — Fresno Superior Court