San Bernardino Personal Injury Lawyer

On San Bernardino’s streets in 2023, 164 drivers struck someone hard enough to cause injury or death and then drove away. Only six of the 62 California cities in its population group recorded more hit-and-run injury crashes, according to the Office of Traffic Safety (OTS). That figure says a good deal about who is hurt in a county seat of 222,044 residents (Census Bureau): people outside a vehicle, often at night, frequently with no insurer on the other side. Those are the cases a San Bernardino personal injury lawyer sees most often, and this page addresses them one group at a time.

How each group ranks

Jump to: motorcyclists · hit-and-run victims · pedestrians · young drivers · freight corridors · mountain highways

Figures and ranks are taken from the Office of Traffic Safety’s 2023 table for the city. Two further groups, drivers in the freight corridors and drivers on the mountain highways, have no OTS category of their own, but they appear regularly in claims here.

Motorcycle crashes at the freeway junction

Ninety motorcyclists injured or killed in a single year placed San Bernardino 3rd of 62, behind only two comparable cities. The city sits at the junction of I-10, I-215 and SR-210, near the Cajon and San Gorgonio passes (Wikipedia), so riders here share the road with long-haul trucks more than riders in most California cities.

North of the 210, I-215 narrows to two lanes in each direction on its way toward Devore and I-15, while the central section through the city was widened from six to ten lanes in a $723 million, 7.5-mile project completed in 2014 (Wikipedia). Lane drops of that kind are where merging drivers fail to see a motorcycle.

Watch out: After a motorcycle crash, an adjuster will often ask first about lane splitting. Lane splitting is legal in California when done safely, and it does not by itself establish fault. What matters is speed and conditions, which the physical evidence shows.

A San Bernardino motorcycle accident attorney will want the motorcycle preserved, the helmet kept and the names of any truck drivers who stopped, because a trucker seated high above the lane often had the clearest view of the merge.

When the driver flees

When a driver flees and is never identified, the money for medical bills and lost wages usually comes from a policy the injured family already holds. Insurance Code §11580.2 sets two conditions for that coverage: the fleeing car must have actually touched the injured person or his or her vehicle, and the police must have learned of the crash within a day. A grandmother struck in a Del Rosa crosswalk may be covered by her son’s auto policy if she lives in his household.

Drivers who flee leave evidence behind, and it does not last. Within the first 48 hours, a family member should:

• Collect any mirror housing, lens or grille fragment left on the pavement, which can identify the make and model
• List each camera within sight of the crash, whether on a storefront, a gas station canopy or an apartment building
• Ask each manager in writing to save footage from half an hour before and after the crash
• Confirm with SBPD that a report was made, and write down its number

Pedestrians at night

Compare the pedestrian row with the late-night row in the table (OTS). Both rank in the top ten, and the two overlap on dark arterial streets. A pedestrian struck at night will hear the insurer’s familiar argument that dark clothing made him or her impossible to see.

A jury can accept that argument and still award most of the loss, because shared fault only reduces a California verdict. If a jury finds a pedestrian partly responsible, the recovery is reduced by that share rather than eliminated. Street lighting, the driver’s speed, whether the headlights were on and whether the driver was looking at a phone all bear on that allocation, and photographs of the scene taken a few days later under the same lighting can be useful evidence. A San Bernardino pedestrian accident lawyer will gather that evidence early; our pedestrian accident guide sets out California’s crosswalk rules.

Many of these injuries happen on the walk to or from a bus stop. Omnitrans, headquartered on West Fifth Street, runs its sbX Green Line bus rapid transit through the city (Wikipedia).

Underage drinking and driving

The under-21 drinking category, ninth in the city’s group, involves a small number of crashes but a disproportionate share of serious injuries (OTS). Cal State San Bernardino anchors the University District (Wikipedia), and young drivers and passengers are part of the city’s evening traffic. A passenger injured in a friend’s car has a claim against that driver’s auto policy; if the policy limits are small, the passenger’s own household coverage may add underinsured motorist benefits.

Drivers sharing the road with freight

Rail yard and air cargo

San Bernardino is home to a BNSF intermodal freight yard and major trucking operations (Wikipedia). San Bernardino International Airport, the former Norton Air Force Base, became an Amazon Air hub in April 2021 and handled about 669,500 tons of cargo in 2025 (Wikipedia).

Why a truck claim involves more parties

A crash with a commercial truck involves more than one insurer: the driver’s employer, sometimes a separate trailer owner and sometimes a broker or shipper. Driver logs, dispatch records and inspection reports are the documents that reveal fatigue or a faulty brake, and carriers do not keep them indefinitely. That is why a San Bernardino truck accident lawyer sends a preservation demand promptly.

Drivers on SR-18 and SR-330

Two mountain highways begin in the city. SR-18, the Rim of the World Highway, starts at the 210 and climbs into the San Bernardino Mountains, narrowing to two lanes beyond Crestline (Wikipedia). SR-330, City Creek Road, runs 15.4 miles from the 210 to Running Springs on a 6% grade; a December 2010 washout closed the entire route until May 2011 (Wikipedia).

Fire and storm history: The 2003 Old Fire and the Waterman Canyon debris flow that followed it explain why mountain-road claims here so often involve road conditions, not just drivers.

The Old Fire burned 91,281 acres and destroyed 993 homes, and two months later a debris flow in Waterman Canyon, along the SR-18 corridor above the city, killed about 14 people (Wikipedia). When a crash on a state mountain highway involves a washout, a missing guardrail or rockfall that was not cleared, Caltrans may share responsibility, and a claim against a state agency requires written notice within six months under Government Code §911.2.

Common questions about San Bernardino claims

I was walking home from an sbX stop and the driver never stopped. Is there any insurance?

Review every auto policy in your household. Uninsured motorist coverage often protects household members when they are pedestrians, provided the statute’s contact and reporting conditions are met.

Does it matter that the truck that hit me was heading to the airport or the rail yard?

It can add parties to the claim. The trucking company, a leasing company and sometimes the business that arranged the shipment may each carry insurance.

My crash on Highway 330 happened during a storm. Is the weather to blame?

Weather cannot be sued, but a driver who ignores it can be. A driver going too fast for a wet 6% grade is still negligent, and Caltrans may share responsibility for a known hazard it failed to address.

Is there a fee to talk with a lawyer?

No. Families in Verdemont, on the Westside and elsewhere in the city can consult us at no cost, and under our contingency terms you pay nothing unless we win.

Trauma care, crash reports and filing

The most seriously injured patients from the county seat are usually taken to neighboring cities, because the two Level I trauma centers are in Loma Linda and Colton. Loma Linda University Medical Center is a Level I center for both adults and children (Wikipedia), and Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, at 400 North Pepper Avenue in Colton, is about seven miles southwest of downtown (ARMC). Community Hospital of San Bernardino treats patients within the city.

1. Which agency has the report depends on the road: SBPD for city streets, and for freeways and state highways the San Bernardino Area office of the CHP’s Inland Division (CHP).
2. A San Bernardino District lawsuit is filed with the civil division at the Justice Center, 247 West Third Street (San Bernardino Superior Court).
3. An adult generally has two years from the injury to bring that lawsuit (Code of Civil Procedure §335.1), and a public agency must receive its written claim far sooner.

Sources

1. County-seat figures in the 62-city Group B comparison, 2023 — OTS
2. County-seat resident total, July 2025 subcounty series — Census Bureau
3. City overview: BNSF intermodal yard, freeway junctions, neighborhoods — Wikipedia
4. Former Norton base turned Amazon Air hub and Breeze Airways stop — Wikipedia
5. Interstate 215: Devore to the 210 and the widening years — Wikipedia
6. Rim of the World Highway climbing past Crestline — Wikipedia
7. City Creek Road to Running Springs, grade and 2010 washout — Wikipedia
8. 2003 Old Fire and the Waterman Canyon debris flow — Wikipedia
9. Omnitrans bus system and sbX Green Line — Wikipedia
10. Loma Linda campus hospital: adult and children’s trauma levels — Wikipedia
11. Arrowhead Regional Medical Center on Pepper Avenue, Colton — ARMC
12. Justice Center civil counter hours and address — sanbernardino.courts.ca.gov
13. Phone directory listing the Inland Division’s San Bernardino Area — CHP
14. Uninsured motorist coverage and hit-and-run conditions — leginfo
15. Two-year rule for bodily-injury complaints — leginfo
16. Six months to notify Caltrans, the county or Omnitrans — leginfo

This page outlines California law for San Bernardino readers. Applying it to a particular crash requires a lawyer who has reviewed the facts.

How our firm represents San Bernardino clients

The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani handles injury claims for people throughout the Inland Empire and across California, including residents of Del Rosa, Verdemont, the University District and the neighborhoods along the 210. Every San Bernardino case we take begins with the same local checklist: the SBPD or CHP report, records from Loma Linda or ARMC, and whether Caltrans, the county or Omnitrans must receive a six-month notice. We represent motorcyclists, pedestrians, hit-and-run victims and people injured in truck collisions, as well as those hurt in rear-end crashes on I-215 and in Uber or Lyft rides to San Bernardino International Airport, and we pursue wrongful death claims for families who have lost someone.

If you are in the hospital at Loma Linda or ARMC, a representative can meet you there. The consultation is free; reach us at (888) 952-2952, or write out what happened in our case evaluator. Hablamos con familias en español: visite esta página.