San Jose Personal Injury Lawyer

Fewer people died in San Jose traffic in 2025 than in any year since 2012: 41 deaths, down from 49 the year before and from a peak of 63 in 2022. Half of them, 20, were pedestrians. Through the middle of 2025, however, severe-injury crashes had not declined as quickly as deaths, according to San José Spotlight’s reporting on city data (San José Spotlight). Surviving a serious crash in a city of 989,814 people (USCB) still means months of treatment and a claim to build, and much of what a San Jose personal injury lawyer can accomplish later depends on what happens in the first 72 hours.

Before anyone leaves the scene

The agency that responds determines where your report will be kept. A crash on Story Road or on a residential street in Willow Glen is handled by an SJPD officer. A crash on a freeway or freeway ramp brings a Highway Patrol officer from the Area 340 office at 2020 Junction Avenue (CHP). Whichever agency arrives, keep the officer’s card, because the number written on it is how the report is ordered later.

Then, if you are able, take the photographs that matter most in San Jose crashes:

• Each vehicle’s final position, with lane lines and any crosswalk in the frame
• The traffic signals facing each direction of travel
• The front and back of the other driver’s registration and insurance card, laid flat on a hood
• Any restaurant, gas station or strip-mall storefront whose camera looks onto the intersection
• VTA riders at a nearby stop who saw the crash, with a phone number for each

In San Jose a driver who flees is not a remote possibility: OTS counted 318 hit-and-run crashes with injuries or deaths in the city in 2023 (OTS). If the other car leaves, note its direction and any part of the plate, then report the crash right away; your own uninsured motorist coverage can depend on a prompt report.

The first night in the hospital

Where ambulances go

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center has been a Level I adult trauma center since 1986 and is also a Level II pediatric trauma center, with burn, spinal cord and brain-injury programs. According to the county, no other hospital in San Jose holds Level I status (County of Santa Clara). Regional Medical Center in East San Jose, a Level II trauma center, has been operated by the county since April 1, 2025 (County of Santa Clara).

What the medical record should say

If paramedics take you to either hospital, your injuries were serious enough to warrant a trauma evaluation, and those records will be central to the claim. If you drove yourself to urgent care, tell the provider exactly how the crash happened. Head injuries are especially easy to miss on the first night; our brain injury page explains what follow-up care usually involves.

When the insurance adjuster calls

Sometime on the morning after the crash, a friendly adjuster may call about the collision at Capitol Expressway or Senter Road and ask to record your account. You are not required to give the other side a recorded statement, and there is little to gain from doing so before a doctor has told you what is wrong.

What to say instead

Give your name, confirm the date and location, and say you will follow up once you have medical information. Do not guess at speeds or distances, and do not say “I’m fine.”

Notifying your own insurer

Notify your own insurance company promptly as well, because your policy requires it. If the other car turns out to be uninsured, or is never found, the claim moves to your UM coverage, and the company you pay each month becomes the one evaluating your injuries.

Three questions San Jose callers ask

I was hit on Monterey Road. Does its reputation help my case?

Not directly, but it helps explain the road. On the 9.6-mile stretch from Keyes Street to Metcalf Road, San José Spotlight reported 480 collisions, 42 deaths or severe injuries and more than 350 minor injuries between 2019 and March 2022, as well as four deaths at Monterey and Curtner between 2017 and 2021 (San José Spotlight). That record of crashes may support an argument that Monterey Road’s design contributed, and any claim against the city on that basis is subject to the six-month deadline discussed below.

I was walking, and the driver says I wasn’t in the crosswalk. What now?

Even if you were a few steps outside the painted lines, your pedestrian claim survives; California would only subtract whatever percentage of blame a jury assigns to you. Video gathered on the second day usually shows where you actually were.

My crash was on Story Road near Keyes. Is that one of the city’s flagged corridors?

Yes. The Story Road–Keyes Street corridor was named among the city’s most dangerous and received $36.4 million in safety funding in 2023, and Senter Road between Story and Monterey received a $10 million allocation (San José Spotlight).

Preserving video on the second day

In a city this size, video is the evidence most likely to disappear. Many business systems record over their footage within days, so a friend or family member should walk the block around the crash on the second day, list every camera and ask each manager in writing to preserve the relevant hour.

San Jose is also piloting 33 speed safety cameras, selected from 63 candidate sites on roads with histories of speed-related crashes, such as Berryessa Road, at a cost of about $16 million funded largely by federal grants (San José Spotlight). If your crash happened at or near one of those locations, ask a lawyer whether any recorded data exists and how to request it.

From the OTS San Jose 2023 page.

Day three and public agencies

By the third day, it is time to ask whether anyone besides the other driver played a part. A VTA bus or light rail train (VTA), a county vehicle, a city truck or a dangerous road condition each brings in a public agency. For VTA, the county or the city, the law requires written notice of the claim within six months of the injury (§911.2). When a VTA bus is involved, our office files that claim before building the rest of the case.

The question matters most on the corridors the city itself has identified. In 2023, San Jose expanded its list of Priority Safety Corridors from 17 to 30, and a $12.9 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant funded work on Curtner Avenue, Monterey Road at Curtner, Tully Road, Capitol Expressway at Senter Road, and East Santa Clara Street at 11th Street (San José Spotlight). The city has said that most of those corridors run through Equity Priority Communities, where rates of fatal and severe-injury crashes are higher (City of San José).

The months after the crash

Since 2024 the city has run a multilingual “Slow Down, San Jose” campaign and used quick-build materials to redesign dangerous streets (San José Spotlight). For someone who has already been hurt, though, the work ahead is personal. Treatment continues, bills arrive and the claim takes shape: medical costs, liens from health insurers, lost wages, future care, and pain and suffering. Twenty of the city’s 41 traffic deaths in 2025 were pedestrians, and each of those families may have a wrongful death claim, which has its own rules on who may bring it.

When the other driver’s insurer will not make a fair offer, the case moves toward court, and the general limit for filing is two years after the collision (CCP §335.1). The complaint is filed a few blocks from City Hall, at the courthouse at 191 North First Street (santaclara.courts.ca.gov). On a San Jose case, our first requests go to SJPD or the CHP’s Junction Avenue office for the report and to VMC or Regional for medical records, with the city’s Priority Safety Corridor list at hand. We represent pedestrians struck on Monterey Road, Tully Road and the city’s other Priority Safety Corridors, and we handle car, motorcycle and Uber or Lyft claims throughout Santa Clara County.

Sources

1. Traffic deaths fell to 41 in 2025, lowest since 2012 — San José Spotlight
2. Monterey Road, ‘Blood Alley,’ slated for a makeover — San José Spotlight
3. Millions awarded for the city’s most dangerous corridors — San José Spotlight
4. Speed cameras coming to 33 locations — San José Spotlight
5. Big-city Group A ranking sheet for the South Bay’s largest city — OTS
6. Near-million population estimate, July 2025 release — USCB
7. County news release on VMC’s Level I standing — County of Santa Clara Health
8. April 2025 transfer of Regional to county operation — County of Santa Clara
9. Office 340 on Junction Avenue: contact and coverage — CHP
10. DTS location listing — santaclara.courts.ca.gov
11. Equity Priority Communities and Priority Safety Corridors announcement — City of San José
12. VTA bus and light rail — VTA
13. CCP 335.1 wording — leginfo
14. Presentment statute that governs VTA claims — leginfo

The deadlines and steps above describe California practice in general terms. Your own San Jose crash deserves a review of its specific facts before you act on any of it.

Talk to a San Jose personal injury lawyer

Whether your crash was on Tully, McKee or King, or on a quiet street in Willow Glen, The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani can take over the claim at any point in the timeline above. A representative will come to your bedside at VMC or to your home in Evergreen, Alum Rock or Berryessa. A South Bay family can learn where its case stands without paying anything, and our contingency fee means no charge unless we win. The number is (888) 952-2952; if writing is easier, a few paragraphs in our case evaluator will reach us. Para familias que prefieren el español: empiece aquí.