Los Altos Hills Personal Injury Attorney

In 2023, six of the eight people killed or injured in traffic crashes reported in Los Altos Hills were riding bicycles (OTS). For a town of 8,419 residents (Census) with no commercial district, that is an unusual pattern, and it shapes much of the work a Los Altos Hills personal injury attorney does here. Each question below links to an answer built on the town’s own records: the state crash tables, the 2024 Foothill Expressway case and the agencies that cover I-280.

• Why were six of eight victims on bicycles?
• What happened in the 2024 Foothill Expressway death, and why does it matter?
• Does the Sheriff or the CHP write the report for a crash near Page Mill Road?
• How long do I have, and where would a case be heard?
• Which records matter first after a Sheriff-investigated crash?

Why so many injured people here are cyclists

6 of 8 victims were on bicycles (OTS).

In the Office of Traffic Safety’s Group F, the band of 74 small cities that includes Los Altos Hills, first place is the worst result. On most measures the town ranks near the safe end of that list. Its composite ranking was 71st of 74, and the 2023 report shows no alcohol-involved, pedestrian, nighttime or hit-and-run injury crashes at all (OTS).

The OTS tables do not say why riders make up so much of the total, and two facts about the town are worth keeping in mind. Los Altos Hills bans commercial zoning, so residents drive out for nearly every errand, and much of the town is open, rural land bordering preserves such as Rancho San Antonio (Wikipedia). Six riders over twelve months is also a small sample, so the table says more about who gets hurt here than about how often.

The Foothill Expressway case

On February 13, 2024, Maria Jabon, 38, of Los Altos, was struck and killed while riding in the southbound lanes of Foothill Expressway near Old Oak Court, about a mile south of Arastradero Road. The Sheriff’s STARS crash-reconstruction team investigated (Mountain View Voice). In September 2024 a 64-year-old driver surrendered on suspicion of felony vehicular manslaughter; investigators alleged he was distracted and swerved into the bike lane (CBS News).

For the people a crash like this leaves behind, the prosecution and the injury claim are different proceedings:

The reconstruction work behind a charge, including vehicle data, scene measurements and phone records, carries into the civil case, and we ask for it as soon as it can be released.

Watch out: California requires a driver overtaking a bicycle to leave at least three feet of clearance (Veh. Code §21760). An insurer that says its driver “never saw” a rider in a marked bike lane is, in effect, describing a driver who was not watching the lane.

Questions cyclists and families ask

The driver says I swerved into his lane. Does that end my claim?

No. California divides fault by percentage. Even if an insurer persuades a jury that you share some blame, your recovery is reduced by that share, not barred. Three kinds of evidence tend to settle a swerving dispute:

• The GPS track from your ride, which records your line and speed
• Helmet or handlebar camera footage
• Paint transfer on the frame and the height of the dent in the car

Does a criminal charge against the driver help my case?

It can. A conviction or plea may be used as evidence, and the reconstruction behind it is often the strongest proof of what happened.

The injury claim moves on its own schedule, though; if charges take a year to resolve, half of the two-year filing window is gone.

My crash happened on I-280. Why isn’t it in the town’s numbers?

OTS builds its city tables from local-agency reports, and the CHP’s freeway crashes are not part of them. None of that affects your claim; the CHP Redwood City report becomes the key document instead.

I wasn’t wearing a helmet. Can I still recover?

California’s bicycle helmet requirement stops at age 18 (Veh. Code §21212). An insurer may argue that a helmet would have lessened a head injury, but that argument goes to the amount of damages, not to whether its driver was at fault.

Who pays my Stanford or Valley Medical bills while the case is open?

Stanford and Valley Medical will usually bill your health plan, and the plan will expect repayment out of any settlement.

Tip: Keep every explanation-of-benefits letter your plan mails after the crash. We use them to check each lien, so you know the real net figure before you agree to anything.

Who investigates a crash in town

Los Altos Hills has no police department of its own. The town contracts with Santa Clara County for police and fire services (Wikipedia), so the agency that writes the report depends on the road.

On town streets and Foothill Expressway, expect a Sheriff’s deputy, and in a fatal or near-fatal crash, the STARS team. The CHP handles I-280 from its office in Redwood City (CHP). Its Redwood City Area investigated a September 2025 crash on southbound I-280 over Page Mill Road, in which a motorcyclist lane-splitting at high speed rear-ended a vehicle, was thrown from the bike and was possibly struck by a pickup. He died at a hospital (NBC Bay Area).

Lane splitting is legal in California, but speed while splitting is the first thing an insurer will raise. Fault can be split, though (CACI 405). Twenty percent of the blame on a rider leaves eighty percent of the damages recoverable. For a family in the Page Mill rider’s position, the pickup’s event data and the struck car’s data matter as much as the rider’s speed, and our motorcycle accident page goes into that evidence in more detail.

What riders should keep

Before anything is repaired or thrown away, set aside:

• Bike, helmet, torn jersey: leave all three unrepaired
• A copy of the GPS ride file, exported before the app overwrites or syncs it
• Any helmet or handlebar camera footage
• The deputy’s business card
• Photos of the lane, the shoulder and any debris, taken at the same time of day

Trauma care

The town has no hospital, and its nearest Level I centers are in Palo Alto and San Jose (EMSA). The Palo Alto center is Stanford’s, with children treated at Lucile Packard; the San Jose center is Valley Medical. For a rider with a head injury, the imaging from that first visit is often the single most important record, so ask for the full chart rather than the discharge summary.

Deadlines and the San Jose courthouse

The six-month clock is the one families miss, because nobody thinks about the road itself in the first weeks after a crash. Lawsuits go to San Jose (Superior Court). The address is 191 North First Street.

How Call Jacob represents Los Altos Hills clients

On a Sheriff-investigated case from Los Altos Hills, we request the incident report early and, after a serious crash, ask whether the STARS team prepared a reconstruction. On a freeway case, we order the CHP Redwood City Area report and look for the event data stored in each vehicle. The matters we take on here include:

• Bicycle crashes on Foothill Expressway, Arastradero Road and Page Mill Road
• Motorcycle and car collisions on I-280
• Rideshare trips to and from Foothill College
• Pedestrians struck while walking along hillside roads
• Dog bites, which California treats under a strict-liability statute
• Brain injuries from a fall onto pavement at speed
• Wrongful death cases, where the STARS reconstruction often decides fault

If you are still at Stanford or recovering at home in the hills, someone from The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani can come to you. The first call is free. Our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you, and nothing at all if we recover nothing. Phone (888) 952-2952. Or fill in the case evaluator.

General information only. Not legal advice.

Sources

1. OTS 2023 results — OTS
2. Vintage 2025 — Census
3. Los Altos Hills — Wikipedia
4. Feb. 2024 crash — Mountain View Voice
5. Driver surrenders — CBS
6. Veh. Code §21760 — Legislature
7. Area 330 — CHP
8. I-280 rider killed — NBC
9. CACI 405 — Justia
10. Trauma list — EMSA
11. CCP §335.1 — Legislature
12. Government Code §911.2 — Legislature
13. CCP §338 — Legislature
14. Courthouse — Superior Court
15. Veh. Code §21212 — Legislature