Pedestrian accident claims in California
The law gives pedestrians considerable protection, and much less than most people assume. Both of those things are true at once, and the gap between them is where these claims are fought.
The crosswalk rule, including the one nobody knows
The phrase doing the most work there is unmarked crosswalk. At most intersections, a crosswalk legally exists across each approach whether or not anyone has painted lines on the road. A pedestrian struck crossing at a corner with no paint is frequently told they were jaywalking. Often they were not.
Mid-block is different. Away from an intersection a pedestrian must generally yield to vehicles, and crossing between two adjacent signalized intersections outside a crosswalk is restricted. Even then, a driver who could have avoided someone plainly visible in the road is not absolved — the duty to exercise due care does not switch off because the other person made a mistake.
Why these cases are rarely small
There is nothing between a person and a vehicle. The usual pattern is a bumper strike to the legs, the body rotating onto the hood, and the head striking either the windshield or, worse, the road. That produces a combination of orthopedic injury and head injury that is expensive to treat and easy to under-document.
- Tibia, fibula and pelvic fractures from the initial strike
- Head injury from the secondary impact, which is often the more serious of the two — see traumatic brain injury
- Shoulder and wrist injuries from the fall
- Psychological injury that is real, documented in the literature, and routinely ignored by claimants — see PTSD after a collision
When the road itself is part of the problem
Some pedestrian collisions are not purely a driver's failure. A missing or dark street light, an obscured sight line, a signal with no pedestrian phase, a crossing that funnels people across five lanes of fast traffic — these are design and maintenance decisions made by a public entity.
Questions people ask
I was not in a marked crosswalk. Is my claim finished?
Very often not. At an intersection a crosswalk usually exists in law whether or not it is painted, under Vehicle Code section 21950. Away from an intersection the analysis changes, but even then a driver who should have seen you and did not may still be substantially at fault, and California reduces recovery for your share rather than barring it.
The police report says I was at fault. Does that settle it?
No. A collision report is an officer's opinion formed quickly, usually without the benefit of the injured person's account — because that person was in an ambulance. Reports are regularly revised or contradicted by camera footage, independent witnesses and physical evidence.
The driver fled. Is there anything to be done?
Yes. Your own uninsured motorist coverage generally responds to a hit-and-run, subject to the requirements in your policy about prompt reporting. See hit and run claims, and report it to the police quickly — the reporting requirement is real.
Can a city be responsible for a crossing being dangerous?
Sometimes, where there is a dangerous condition of public property and the entity knew or should have known about it. These claims are harder than claims against drivers and carry immunities that do not apply to private defendants, and they are governed by the six-month claim deadline rather than the two-year one.
Related
Reviewed October 2026 by Simon Aziz Budhwani, Esq., the attorney responsible for this site. Legal statements here name the California code section they rely on, so you can check them rather than trust them. This is information about the law in general, not advice about your situation.
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