Hemet Personal Injury Attorney

At a glance — Hemet, 2020 to 2024

• 1,960 injury collisions in five years, 1,255 of them at an intersection
• 26 deadly crashes with a person on foot, against 24 deadly crashes between vehicles alone
• 76% of severe and fatal pedestrian collisions happened in the evening or overnight
• About 38 miles of road, 13% of the network, carried 80% of fatal and severe crashes

Source: Hemet Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, Sept. 2026

Hemet’s new Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, finalized in September 2026, found that crashes involving people on foot made up only a tenth of the city’s injury collisions over five years yet produced more fatal collisions than every vehicle-only crash combined. For a Hemet family, that means the first three days after a collision often begin in darkness, at an intersection the City has already studied, and for serious injuries they include a transfer out of town for trauma care. What follows walks through those 72 hours with the City’s own data beside each step, and shows where a Hemet personal injury attorney at Call Jacob takes over.

On this page:

• Where the City’s own count is highest
• From the crash through the third morning
• Questions from parents and grown children
• Florida Avenue is also a state highway
• Lawsuit deadlines and the Main Street courthouse

Where the City’s own count is highest

The safety plan ranked Hemet intersections by the collisions recorded at each between 2020 and 2024 (CSAP). If your crash happened at one of these, the City’s analysis of that corner is already public.

The plan also lists Stetson, Sanderson, Devonshire, Kirby, State, Menlo and San Jacinto as high-priority corridors with a history of fatal and serious crashes, and on May 12, 2026 the City Council adopted a Vision Zero resolution aiming to end traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2031.

The state’s comparisons point the same way, with speed standing out: in 2023, 87 speed-related injury crashes put Hemet 10th of 103 peer cities, and its 510 people killed or injured put it 13th (OTS 2023). A year earlier the toll was 523, and only seven of 104 cities fared worse (OTS 2022).

From the crash through the third morning

In the crosswalk, before the ambulance leaves

1. Call 911. Hemet Police, headquartered at 450 E. Latham Avenue, investigate collisions on city streets, and the department’s Traffic Enforcement section is staffed by a sergeant and four full-time motor officers (Hemet PD).
2. If you were walking or riding a bicycle, stay where you are until officers arrive; a pedestrian’s account taken at the scene carries weight later.
3. Use your phone’s camera on the streetlights, the nearest marked crossing and the signal heads before anything is repaired. Darkness is part of the evidence when three in four of the city’s worst pedestrian crashes happen after the sun goes down.
4. Get the Hemet Police report number onto a card, a text message or a relative’s phone before the ambulance doors close.

Overnight at Hemet Global or RUHS

The emergency department at Hemet Global Medical Center is open around the clock and holds a stroke designation, yet a physician-recruiting listing describes it as not trauma-designated (PracticeMatch listing). Broken pelvises, head injuries and internal bleeding from a Hemet crash therefore tend to end up in Moreno Valley, at the Level I unit of Riverside University Health System (RUHS).

After an inter-hospital move, ask for the chart from each building: the Hemet emergency notes that describe your condition on arrival, and the RUHS trauma admission, operative and imaging reports. Insurers sometimes argue that a patient sent home from a community hospital was not seriously hurt; the Moreno Valley chart usually answers that.

Phone calls on the second morning

1. Report the crash to the company that insures your own car, even if you were walking; a pedestrian struck by an uninsured Hemet driver can still draw on the UM and med-pay provisions of that household policy.
2. Write down what you remember about the other driver’s speed. The plan measured typical speeds of 51 mph on Sanderson Avenue near Mustang Way, where the posted limit is 45.
3. Return to the location, or send a relative, to list cameras at the retail centers near Lyon Avenue and Florida Avenue or wherever the crash happened, and ask the managers in writing to keep the footage.

Day three brings the adjuster

By the third morning a representative of the driver’s carrier has usually left a voicemail. Return it with your name and claim number only, and say no to taping a statement. An adjuster who asks why you were crossing at night, or whether you used the crosswalk, is building a comparative fault argument. Even a pedestrian a jury considers partly careless keeps the larger share of the award, because California subtracts only that person’s percentage (CACI 405).

Watch out: Hemet has an older population than most cities its size; 22.8% of residents were 65 or older in 2020 (Wikipedia). If an injured parent is on Medicare, Medicare will expect repayment from any settlement, and that lien should be negotiated before the case closes.

Questions from parents and grown children

My mother was hit crossing Florida Avenue after dark. Is darkness her fault?

No. Drivers must see and yield to pedestrians at night as well as during the day. Lighting, clothing and the driver’s speed are all weighed, and Hemet’s own plan treats after-dark pedestrian crashes as a citywide pattern the City intends to address.

Why was my son taken to Moreno Valley instead of the hospital in Hemet?

Riverside County ambulance crews route major injuries to a designated trauma center, and Hemet Global Medical Center does not hold that designation, so the Level I unit at RUHS in Moreno Valley receives them.

Our daughter is 12 and was hit on her bicycle. Does a child’s case work differently?

In three ways:

• the two-year period for her own case against the driver is generally tolled while she is a minor
• if a Sanderson or Stetson crossing design is blamed, the parents still have only half a year to notify the City in writing
• the Riverside Superior Court reviews and signs off on whatever amount is offered for her

Seven riders under 15 were hurt on Hemet streets in 2023, a total only twelve peer cities exceeded.

Does the City’s safety plan help my case?

It can. A documented history at Sanderson and Mustang Way or Lyon and Florida helps show that a public agency knew about a problem. It does not decide who caused your crash; the evidence from that night does.

Who investigates a crash on Mountain Avenue or another city street?

Hemet Police. In September 2024 its Traffic Bureau investigated a fatal head-on crash on Mountain Avenue that closed the road for six hours (CBS LA).

Florida Avenue is also a state highway

Florida Avenue is Hemet’s main east-west street and also a state highway: State Route 74 runs along most of it, and SR-79 shares it for a few miles (Wikipedia). Five of the city’s twelve highest-collision intersections are on it, a raised median was added in 2020, and the safety plan calls for coordination with Caltrans on further changes.

Ownership decides who answers for a missing crosswalk, a dark stretch or a badly timed signal, and every public owner must receive a written claim within six months of the injury before it can be sued (Gov. Code §911.2).

A plan ranking does not prove a dangerous condition by itself. It does show the location was known to the agency that owns it.

Lawsuit deadlines and the Main Street courthouse

Suing the Hemet motorist responsible is generally possible for two years after the crash (CCP §335.1), or three years when only a car or other property was damaged. A serious injury claim from Hemet is heard in downtown Riverside rather than in the San Jacinto Valley: since August 1, 2026, Hemet’s 92543–92546 ZIP codes have been assigned to the Riverside Historic Courthouse at 4050 Main Street for cases above the limited-civil threshold (Riverside Superior Court).

Retaining a lawyer after a Hemet crash

Call Jacob represents Hemet residents, retirees and the families who care for them, and we begin each case by requesting the Hemet Police collision report and checking the crash location against the City’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan. When an injured client was transferred from Hemet Global Medical Center to RUHS in Moreno Valley, we gather both hospitals’ records so the full extent of the injury is documented from the first hour. If the design of Florida Avenue or a City corridor such as Stetson contributed, we decide early whether Caltrans or the City of Hemet is the proper public defendant and serve its claim promptly.

Before we meet: put the Latham Avenue report number, the Hemet Global and RUHS paperwork and every insurance letter in one folder. We can bring the paperwork to your living room.

Given the 26 fatal pedestrian collisions in the City’s five-year count, pedestrian claims come first in our Hemet work, and our pedestrian accident page explains how they are built. Speed-related car and auto accident claims from Sanderson and Stetson come next, followed by bicycle accidents involving children and adults, motorcycle and truck collisions, falls on unsafe property, and wrongful death claims for families who lost someone on these roads.

No charge applies to a first meeting about a Hemet crash, and you pay nothing unless we win. A representative can sit down with you at home in West Hemet, near Harvard Street downtown, or beside a bed at RUHS. Reach the office at (888) 952-2952. Relatives handling things for a hospitalized parent often find the online case evaluator easier at night, and Spanish-language help is at calljacob.com/es.

Not legal advice: a summary of Hemet’s 2026 safety findings and the California rules that usually apply.

Sources

1. Hemet CSAP (2026) — City of Hemet
2. OTS 2023 — OTS
3. OTS 2022 — OTS
4. Operations Division — Hemet PD
5. Hemet Global ED listing — PracticeMatch
6. RUHS trauma — RUHS
7. CACI 405 — Justia
8. Hemet — Wikipedia
9. Gov. Code §911.2 — Legislature
10. Mountain Ave crash — CBS LA
11. CCP §335.1 — Legislature
12. Where to file — Riverside Superior Court