Rancho Palos Verdes Personal Injury Attorney

Some of the pavement in Rancho Palos Verdes is moving. The Portuguese Bend landslide has cracked and buckled Palos Verdes Drive South, the city has barred bicycles and motorcycles from part of it, and the steep descent of Hawthorne Boulevard near Blackhorse Road became known worldwide after a 2021 rollover. A Rancho Palos Verdes personal injury attorney works from those road conditions first, because on the peninsula the road itself is often part of the claim. Below, each corridor gets its own section: Hawthorne Boulevard, Palos Verdes Drive South, and the coastal roads by Terranea.

• Hawthorne Boulevard
• Palos Verdes Drive South
• Coastal roads
• Police, hospital and court

A note on numbers. The state’s 2023 city crash ranking for Rancho Palos Verdes does not report usable victim counts (OTS), so this page relies on reporting about specific roads rather than citywide statistics. Rancho Palos Verdes counted 39,654 residents in a 2025 Census estimate, but its coastal roads also carry resort guests and hikers.

Hawthorne Boulevard below Blackhorse Road

On February 23, 2021, Tiger Woods’s SUV crashed on the northbound, downhill, curving stretch of Hawthorne Boulevard near Blackhorse Road, at the border of Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates. NBC Los Angeles reported 13 crashes at that location between January 2020 and the time of the Woods crash, 4 of them with injuries (NBC Los Angeles). The Sheriff said at the time that the grade alone pushes speeds up on that descent, and Supervisor Janice Hahn ordered a Los Angeles County Public Works safety review of the road.

The stretch has a truck turnout and a sign warning drivers to test their brakes. Those features tell you what engineers already knew: vehicles pick up speed going down this hill, and brake failure is a known concern on it.

What a claim on this descent tends to need:

• Speed and braking data from each vehicle, downloaded before the car is repaired or salvaged.
• Brake and maintenance records, especially for trucks and older cars, given the warning posted on the hill.
• The County’s review and any changes it led to, which help show what the public agencies knew about the curve.
• The exact location, since the city line runs near this stretch and determines which public entity, if any, is responsible for the road.

Palos Verdes Drive South through Portuguese Bend

The Portuguese Bend landslide covers about 260 acres, and its movement sped up after 2023 (Wikipedia). Palos Verdes Drive South runs across the moving ground.

In June 2024 the City Council voted unanimously to ban bicycles and motorcycles on about two miles of Palos Verdes Drive South between Narcissa Drive and Peppertree Drive, citing cracks, uneven pavement and potholes left by the land movement. Cars may still use the road, under warning signs and a reduced speed. Coverage of the vote put traffic on the road at about 16,000 vehicles a day, and some residents argued that driver speed, not two-wheeled traffic, was the real danger (TV Azteca, citing the Daily Breeze).

The repairs continue. A city alert announced that Palos Verdes Drive South between Schooner Drive and Wayfarers Chapel would close in both directions on July 19, 2025, for emergency roadway repairs, and it reopened by 6 p.m. that day (City of Rancho Palos Verdes).

The chapel, utility and slowing details come from the city’s Wikipedia entry.

What this means for a claim

A road that has been damaged by the ground beneath it raises the question of whether the public entity responsible for it is liable for a dangerous condition of public property. The council’s ban and the warning signs show the city knew the pavement was in poor shape. They can also be the city’s answer: that it warned drivers and restricted the road. How those two points balance depends on the specific defect, where it was and what the driver could see.

Watch out: The deadline for a written claim to the city is half a year, far shorter than the two years for a claim against a driver (Gov. Code §911.2). Photograph the pavement defect before the next repair covers it.

A cyclist or motorcyclist hurt on the closed stretch faces an added argument, that the rider should not have been there. California’s comparative fault rule reduces a recovery by the rider’s share of fault instead of barring it (CACI 405), but the ban will be part of the defense. Riders facing that argument can read our motorcycle accident page, which covers lane position, visibility and the other points raised against motorcyclists.

The coastal stretch near Terranea and Point Vicente

Rancho Palos Verdes draws visitors to Terranea Resort, built on the former Marineland site, to Trump National Golf Club, to the 1926 Point Vicente Lighthouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and to the trails of the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve (Wikipedia). Many of those visitors are driving narrow, curving coastal roads for the first time.

A crash here can involve a rental car, a cyclist on a weekend ride or a visitor walking from a parked car to a trailhead. When a rental car is involved, three sources of coverage have to be sorted out:

• the renter’s own auto policy, if there is one
• any protection bought at the rental counter
• the rental company’s own liability coverage

Our bicycle accident page explains claims by riders hit by drivers who drift on a curve.

Who responds and where cases go

Police and hospital

Sources: Wikipedia for the Sheriff’s contract, the CHP area page, which lists Rancho Palos Verdes among its communities, and the state EMSA list. Harbor-UCLA is a Level I center. The Lomita Station also covers Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates under the same contract arrangement.

Court and deadlines

Any peninsula lawsuit belongs to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Which of its districts hears the case turns on where the collision happened, under the court’s general order (LASC General Order). In practice, cases from the peninsula are generally filed in the Southwest District; the 211 LA directory places Rancho Palos Verdes within the Torrance Courthouse’s area, at 825 Maple Avenue (211 LA), and the court’s locator settles the question for any particular address.

Against a careless driver rather than the city, the time to sue is longer: two years (CCP §335.1).

Peninsula questions

The pavement on Palos Verdes Drive South caused my crash. Who do I make the claim against?

Usually the agency that owns and maintains that stretch of road. For Palos Verdes Drive South that is generally the City of Rancho Palos Verdes, and the claim has to be in its hands within six months.

I was riding my bike on the restricted stretch. Do I still have a case?

Possibly. The ban will be raised against you, but it does not automatically excuse a driver who hit you or a road defect that caused the fall.

What helps most is evidence of the specific cause: the crack or pothole your wheel hit, or the car that crowded you. A jury’s finding that you were partly to blame lowers the award by that share; it does not wipe it out.

My crash on Hawthorne Boulevard happened near the Rolling Hills Estates line. Does that matter?

It can. The location decides which city’s or agency’s records apply and, if the road contributed, which public entity receives the claim. Deputies from one station, Lomita, patrol both sides of that line.

I was visiting Terranea and was hit by a local driver. Can I pursue the claim from home?

Yes. California law applies to a crash here wherever you live, and most of the work can be handled by phone and mail.

Representing people hurt on the peninsula

The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani (Call Jacob) represents drivers, cyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians and visitors hurt on Rancho Palos Verdes roads, including Palos Verdes Drive South, Hawthorne Boulevard and the coastal roads near Terranea. On a Rancho Palos Verdes case, we photograph and document the road surface before repairs change it, request the Lomita Station report, and prepare the six-month government claim when the condition of the road played a part.

Our peninsula work covers rider injuries on Palos Verdes Drive South, car accident claims, truck crashes on the Hawthorne descent, injuries to pedestrians and cyclists near the coastal trailheads, rental-car and rideshare claims, falls on unsafe property, dog bites and wrongful death.

Free consultation: Talking with us about a peninsula crash costs nothing. We are paid only if the case succeeds. Our number is (888) 952-2952. Prefer to write? Our online case evaluator asks about the road, the vehicles and your injuries. If you are still at Harbor-UCLA, or recovering at home on the hill, we can meet you there.

The ground under Palos Verdes Drive South keeps shifting, and so do the facts on the road; nothing here is legal advice.

Sources

1. Rancho Palos Verdes 2023 — OTS
2. V2025 estimates — Census Bureau
3. Hawthorne safety review — NBC Los Angeles
4. Rancho Palos Verdes — Wikipedia
5. Two-wheeler ban — TV Azteca
6. July 2025 closure alert — City of Rancho Palos Verdes
7. Gov. Code §911.2 — Legislature
8. CACI 405 — Justia
9. Area 530 — CHP
10. Trauma centers 2025 — EMSA
11. 2024-GEN-003-00 — LASC
12. Civil trial courts — 211 LA
13. CCP §335.1 — Legislature