Pasadena Personal Injury Attorney

Older pedestrians are at greater risk in Pasadena than in any comparable California city. No city in Pasadena’s state comparison group of 62 had more people over 65 hurt or killed while walking in 2023; Pasadena had 19 (OTS). Families often contact a Pasadena personal injury attorney several days after a parent has been struck in a crosswalk, when the most useful evidence is already disappearing. This page follows one hypothetical crash through the first three days, hour by hour, so you can see where each record is kept and who holds it.

• Pasadena’s 72-hour timeline
• Hour 0 at Lake Avenue and Orange Grove
• Hour 2 in the Huntington emergency department
• Hour 20 and the agency that holds the report
• Hour 48 and the insurer’s phone call
• Hour 72 and the city’s record for the intersection
• Other questions Pasadena families raise
• Pasadena cases after the third day

Pasadena’s 72-hour timeline

Hour 0 at Lake Avenue and Orange Grove

Hypothetical example: At 5:40 on a winter evening, a 72-year-old retiree from Bungalow Heaven steps into the crosswalk on a walk signal at Lake Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard. A driver turning left from Orange Grove, watching for a gap in oncoming traffic, never sees her.

That intersection was chosen deliberately. In the city’s own analysis of 2015–2019 data, Lake and Orange Grove ranked first among all Pasadena intersections for collision frequency, with 69 collisions, and it had the highest severity-weighted score (Pasadena LRSAP). The hour matters as well. From 2020 to 2024, 29% of local injury collisions happened in darkness, and 65% of injury collisions, up from 52% a decade earlier, occurred at signalized intersections.

In the first minutes, someone (a bystander, the driver, or the injured woman herself if she is able) needs to do three things: call 911, photograph where she came to rest in relation to the painted crosswalk, and photograph the pedestrian signal. Crashes between a left-turning car and a pedestrian often turn on whether the walk signal was lit. A time-stamped phone photo of the signal answers that question better than any later reconstruction.

Hour 2 in the Huntington emergency department

The ambulance takes her to Huntington Hospital, which the state EMS Authority’s August 2025 list designates as a Level II trauma center (EMSA). For an older adult with a fractured hip, wrist or pelvis, the imaging and orthopedic notes written here become the foundation of the claim.

What the family can do at the hospital

1. Give the triage nurse a plain description of what happened: “struck by a left-turning car while walking.” The trauma notes will record it, and adjusters will read it later.
2. Write down every medication she already takes. Blood thinners affect both her treatment and the medical picture of the injury.
3. Ask for the name of the admitting physician, and keep a copy of all discharge paperwork.

Pedestrians were involved in only 11% of Pasadena injury collisions from 2020 to 2024, but in 28% of the crashes that killed or seriously injured someone (Pasadena LRSAP). That difference is why pedestrian claims involve larger medical bills and longer recoveries than a typical minor collision. When a crosswalk injury leads to months of rehabilitation, the factors that set its value are set out on our pedestrian accident page.

Hour 20 and the agency that holds the report

Depending on where the crash happened, one of three agencies may have the report:

• City streets such as Lake, Colorado or Fair Oaks: officers from the Pasadena Police Department respond and write the report.
• Freeways, including the 134, the 210 and the Arroyo Seco Parkway, and the Angeles Crest Highway above town: the CHP’s Altadena Area office at 2130 Windsor Avenue (CHP).
• A Metro A Line train or bus, a Foothill Transit bus or a Pasadena Transit vehicle: the police report and the transit operator’s own incident file.

A Pasadena police report number will not retrieve a CHP file from Windsor Avenue, and a CHP number will not retrieve a city report, so confirming the agency at the outset saves weeks.

Tip: The Arroyo Seco Parkway opened in 1940 as California’s first freeway (Wikipedia). Its short merges and tight curves produce particular kinds of rear-end and sideswipe crashes, and CHP reports on it deserve a careful, line-by-line reading.

Hour 48 and the insurer’s phone call

By the second day, the driver’s insurance company calls the family, usually the adult child listed as the emergency contact. The adjuster asks how her mother is doing, whether she was looking at her phone and whether she “stepped out quickly.” Every answer is recorded.

Watch out: A remark such as “she’s been a little unsteady lately” can be used to argue comparative fault. Under California’s pure comparative fault rule, a pedestrian who was partly at fault can still recover the rest of her damages, but every percentage point assigned to her is subtracted from the total.

Before anyone returns the insurer’s call

• Direct all insurance calls to one family member, and have that person decline recorded statements
• Find your mother’s own auto insurance declarations page; her UM/UIM coverage protects her in the crosswalk, not only in her car
• Keep a dated photo record of her bruising through the first seven days
• Keep parking receipts from visits to Huntington Hospital

Hour 72 and the city’s record for the intersection

By the third day, useful evidence exists beyond the scene itself. In October 2025, Pasadena adopted a Focused Local Roadway Safety Action Plan with a goal of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035, and the plan names the intersections where people are hurt most often (Pasadena LRSAP).

Intersections the plan identifies

A documented crash history at a specific intersection helps a claim in two ways. It answers the driver’s suggestion that the crash was a freak event, and, when signal timing, sight lines or crossing design contributed, it supports a government claim against the City of Pasadena. That claim is due at City Hall six months after the injury (Gov. Code §911.2), a year and a half sooner than the deadline for suing the driver.

The third day is also when surveillance video begins to disappear. Businesses along South Lake Avenue and in the Playhouse District keep footage for days, not months. A preservation letter sent on day three is worth more than a subpoena served in month four.

Other questions Pasadena families raise

Does New Year’s Day traffic matter if my crash happened near the parade route?

The Tournament of Roses Parade traditionally draws more than one million spectators, and CHP Altadena provides escorts and traffic control for both the parade and the Rose Bowl Game (CHP). Because of street closures and temporary traffic control, the report may come from an agency you did not expect, so ask at the scene.

My son was hit while riding his bike to Caltech. Is that different from a car crash?

Caltech employs about 3,900 people and JPL about 5,029 (Wikipedia), and many of them commute by bicycle. The 2023 state rankings list 45 cyclists injured or killed in Pasadena, fourteenth-worst in the group (OTS). The law is the same, but the evidence differs: bike-lane markings and whether the rider was in the door zone become important. Riders commuting to the Oak Grove campus can read about door-zone and right-hook collisions on our bicycle accident page.

The driver says my mother walked against the light. What happens now?

That is a dispute over fault, and it is common in crashes between left-turning cars and pedestrians. Signal timing records, video from nearby businesses and the physical point of impact resolve it more reliably than either person’s memory.

My family member was killed. Who can bring a claim?

Under California law, a spouse, children and certain other family members can bring a wrongful death claim. The order of priority among relatives is set out on our wrongful death page.

Pasadena cases after the third day

Call Jacob represents Pasadena residents, JPL and Caltech commuters, and Rose Bowl visitors in pedestrian, car, bicycle, Metro A Line and bus cases, as well as rideshare collisions on Colorado Boulevard and falls in Old Pasadena shops and parking structures. In every Pasadena case, we begin with three requests: the Pasadena police or CHP Altadena report, the Huntington Hospital chart and the crash history for the intersection in the city’s safety plan. Those documents determine whether the claim should also be brought against the City.

If the retiree in our example was hurt in March, her lawsuit against the driver generally must be on file by that same month two years later (CCP §335.1). Where that lawsuit is filed now depends on where the crash occurred, because the Los Angeles Superior Court reorganized its personal injury calendar by location (LASC order). The courthouse at 300 Walnut Street, in downtown Pasadena, belongs to the Northeast District and handles limited civil, small claims and traffic matters (LA Superior Court). Older rule language that sends unlimited injury cases to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown is still in circulation, so we confirm the correct filing location with the court’s locator in every case.

When you work with a Pasadena car accident attorney at Call Jacob, one team handles the report requests, the Huntington records, any claim against the City and every call from an insurer. Our representatives meet families at home or at the hospital. Talking the crash through with us costs nothing, and our fee depends on the result: you pay nothing unless we win. Families often phone (888) 952-2952 from the Huntington lobby; others prefer to type out what happened in our case evaluator. If a grandparent or other relative is more at ease in Spanish, the same help is available through calljacob.com/es.

The Lake Avenue example is hypothetical, and nothing here replaces legal advice about your own crash.

Sources

1. Group B lookup with 65+ pedestrian and bicyclist rows, 2023 — California Office of Traffic Safety
2. Vision-zero-by-2035 safety action plan with Safety Corridor map — City of Pasadena
3. August 22, 2025 roster listing Huntington Hospital’s trauma level — California EMS Authority
4. Pasadena Police Department — City of Pasadena
5. Windsor Avenue office page: parade escorts, Angeles Crest patrol — California Highway Patrol
6. Pasadena, California — Wikipedia
7. Government Code §911.2, government claim deadline — California Legislative Information
8. Code of Civil Procedure §335.1 — California Legislative Information
9. LASC PDF: where injury complaints go after October 2022 — Los Angeles Superior Court
10. Press release on the personal injury hub restructuring — Los Angeles Superior Court