McFarland Personal Injury Attorney

Look McFarland up in the Office of Traffic Safety’s 2023 rankings and every row reads zero: no one killed, no one injured, in any category (OTS 2023). The city’s own Local Road Safety Plan explains why that cannot be taken at face value. Collisions written up by McFarland police were not being forwarded to the statewide database, so the state’s picture of Sherwood Avenue, Kern Avenue and the Highway 99 ramps is mostly blank (McFarland LRSP). A McFarland personal injury attorney therefore cannot lean on state data the way a lawyer in a larger city might, and that puts unusual weight on what happens in the first three days after a crash, when the local report is written and the physical evidence still exists.

Why the state shows zero

• 2013–2016: McFarland police logged roughly 32 crashes a year that never reached SWITRS, the state collision database
• After 2015, crashes that did reach SWITRS dropped from about 27 a year to 3
• The city’s fuller count for 2010–2019: 173 police-reported crashes, 7 of them fatal or severe, an average near 15 a year
• The plan itself labels the state data incomplete

Data gaps, wrong-way drivers and Delano

The state lists McFarland with no injury crashes in 2023. Can the insurer use that?

It can try, and it should not succeed. Your claim is proven by your own McFarland Police report, photographs, witnesses and Kern Medical chart, and the city’s safety plan documents that the state totals left many local crashes out.

The other car crossed the center line on Sherwood Avenue. How is that proven?

Point of impact, crush damage, where the cars stopped, debris on the pavement and any camera footage usually show which car left its lane. Since wrong-side driving led McFarland’s serious-crash factors, it is one of the first things we look for.

Delano’s courthouse is six miles away. Is that where I would sue?

Delano can take smaller civil matters, but a fracture, surgery or months of lost farm wages often pushes a claim past $35,000, and those are filed in Bakersfield.

Can my family speak with your firm in Spanish?

Yes. Spanish is spoken at home in most McFarland households, and calljacob.com/es walks through a claim in that language.

At the scene on Sherwood or Kern Avenue

Since 2009, when McFarland brought back a city police force after decades of Kern County Sheriff patrols, crashes inside city limits have been McFarland Police Department reports (Wikipedia). That report is the record most likely to survive, so the scene is where it starts.

1. Ask the McFarland officer which number the department will file the collision under; without it, finding the paper later is slow.
2. Take pictures of both vehicles before they are moved, and of the Sherwood or Kern Avenue stop sign governing the corner. On the Perkins Avenue ramps, frame the ramp signs so the direction of travel is clear.
3. Record each witness’s phone number and preferred language; about 70.2% of residents speak Spanish at home (Wikipedia).
4. If the other car was over the center line, tell the officer in those words.

That last point carries particular weight in McFarland. Crossing onto the wrong side of the road was the leading factor in McFarland’s deadly and disabling crashes, present in 29% of them.

The drive to Kern Medical

McFarland’s seriously injured share one trauma destination with the rest of Kern County. A McFarland crash victim with broken bones or a head injury is driven south on 99, about 25 miles, to Kern Medical, the facility EMSA’s August 2025 roster designates (EMSA). People who refused the ambulance on Browning Road should still see a doctor within a day; carriers often cite a five-day wait as a sign that a McFarland driver was not really hurt.

Tip: Mention every complaint to the ER nurse, down to a dull headache or pins and needles in the fingers. A concussion from a Sherwood Avenue T-bone may not announce itself until the second or third morning, and the triage note is the first written proof of when symptoms began.

Saving the evidence by day three

With treatment underway, the job becomes collecting what would otherwise disappear.

• Phone the department on day two to learn when the Sherwood or Kern Avenue report will be released
• Walk back to the intersection and note every doorbell, shop or school camera aimed at the road
• Knock and ask, in English or Spanish, that the owner set aside the clip from the crash date
• Photograph bruises daily so the healing shows on a calendar
• Look up what your own policy pays under med-pay and UM before the other carrier calls
• Write a page in your own words, English or Spanish, about the seconds before impact

Note too whether the crash was near Kern Avenue Elementary, where the city has a Safe Routes to School project, near the signal project at East Sherwood Avenue and Marshall Street, or at a corner fitted with solar flashing stop signs. Each project marks a place the city had already identified as a problem.

The city’s own hotspot list

McFarland’s 2020 Systemic Safety Analysis, folded into the later safety plan, put 20 intersections and 10 segments in order of risk. Counts per location are not published, only the order:

Perkins Avenue turns up again at Browning Road and at 2nd, 3rd and 10th Streets, and the plan notes crashes on the rural edges along Driver and Whisler Roads. Highway 99, laid through town in 1950 as U.S. 99, splits this city of 14,709 people (Census 2025 estimate) into an east side and a west side that meet at the ranked Perkins ramps.

The insurance calls in week one

Somewhere around day five or six, a claims representative for the McFarland driver who hit you is likely to call. Declining a recorded interview is your right, and waiting until a doctor has named your injuries is usually wiser. Your own company must be told about the crash under the policy, but a short factual notice is enough.

Two McFarland facts bear on insurance. If the driver was uninsured or fled the Kern Avenue scene, the UM portion of your own policy may cover your injuries. OTS also credits McFarland officers with 39 DUI arrests in 2023, 66th of 103 cities on a scale where 1st means fewest; that reflects stops on the town’s streets, not risk.

Deadlines to mark by week four

By the one-month mark, these dates should be on the calendar:

Families often ask about Delano’s branch, about 6.5 miles north. The answer turns on value. Once a McFarland family’s losses top $35,000, as many fracture or surgery cases do, the complaint goes to the Metropolitan Justice Building, 1215 Truxtun Avenue, Bakersfield (Kern Superior Court). If the carrier claims you were partly to blame for a ramp collision, your share is subtracted from the award rather than defeating the claim (CACI 405).

Call Jacob and the McFarland Police record

We represent McFarland farmworkers, students, parents and Highway 99 commuters hurt on Sherwood Avenue, Kern Avenue, Perkins Avenue and Elmo Highway. Because state data for this city is incomplete, on every McFarland case we request the McFarland Police report directly, match the crash site against the 2020 hotspot list, and send preservation letters to the owners of any camera that faced the scene.

The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani handles car accident claims arising from head-on and wrong-side collisions, pedestrian injuries on San Lucas and San Juan Streets and near schools, cyclist injuries, truck crashes involving farm and freight traffic on 99, motorcycle collisions, dog bites and wrongful death claims.

A representative can sit with you at home in McFarland or at Kern Medical, without charge for that meeting. No fee comes due unless the case produces a recovery for you. A McFarland car accident attorney at our office answers at (888) 952-2952, and the case evaluator accepts a written account of the Sherwood, Kern or Perkins Avenue crash.

Sherwood Avenue to Truxtun Avenue: the steps and figures above are general information for McFarland residents, not legal advice.

Sources

1. McFarland LRSP (2022) — Kern COG
2. OTS 2023: McFarland — OTS
3. Vintage 2025 estimates — Census
4. McFarland — Wikipedia
5. Trauma centers (2025) — EMSA
6. Civil division — Kern court
7. Government Code §911.2 — Legislature
8. CCP §335.1 — Legislature
9. CACI 405 — Justia