Burbank Car Accident Lawyer

Where Burbank crashes actually happen

The City of Burbank has published collision counts for its busiest intersections, and three come up again and again. Between 2015 and 2020 the city recorded roughly 50 collisions at Victory Place and Burbank Boulevard, 45 at Olive Avenue and Buena Vista Street, and 41 at Buena Vista Street and Victory Boulevard.

Those three intersections have something in common: volume. Each carries somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 vehicles a day, and Burbank Boulevard at Victory is the busiest crossing in the city, moving more than 6,400 vehicles an hour during the evening rush.

We see the same pattern in the cases that come to us. Crashes cluster where drivers leaving the Golden State (I-5) and Ventura (SR-134) freeways meet surface streets that were never designed for freeway-speed traffic, and around the retail and studio traffic on Olive, Victory and Alameda.

The Burbank deadline most people miss

California generally gives you two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. But if a public entity had a hand in your crash — a City of Burbank vehicle, a defective traffic signal, a poorly maintained roadway, a Burbank Water and Power truck — the rule changes completely.

Under California Government Code section 911.2, a claim for death or injury to person or personal property against a public entity must be presented to that entity no later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Not two years. Six months. The City of Burbank requires a Claim for Damages form to be submitted to the City Clerk's Office through the City Attorney's Office.

Miss that six-month window and a case that would otherwise have been worth pursuing can be over before it starts. This is the single most common way we see Burbank residents lose a legitimate claim, and it is the reason we would rather hear from you early than late.

Getting treated in Burbank — and why the ER you choose matters

Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center at 501 S. Buena Vista Street is the hospital most Burbank collision victims are taken to, and its emergency department is directly across from Walt Disney Studios.

One practical detail worth knowing: in California's state facility records, Saint Joseph's emergency room is licensed at the basic service level rather than as a designated trauma center. Patients with severe traumatic injuries are frequently routed to or transferred to a designated trauma center instead. If you or a family member were transferred between hospitals after a Burbank crash, that transfer is a meaningful fact about the severity of the injury, and it belongs in your claim file.

Whatever you do, get examined. Adjusters treat a gap between the crash date and the first medical visit as evidence that you were not really hurt, and soft-tissue and head injuries routinely take a day or two to declare themselves.

Where a Burbank injury case is filed

Burbank sits in the Los Angeles Superior Court's North Central District, and the Burbank Courthouse is at 300 E. Olive Avenue.

Which courthouse ultimately hears a given case depends on where the collision happened, where the parties are located, and how the court is currently assigning civil matters — and those assignment rules do change. The court moved personal injury cases filed in its Central District out of the former Personal Injury Hub at the Spring Street Courthouse and into Independent Calendar departments at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse effective January 8, 2024.

The practical point for you is simpler: filing venue is a decision your lawyer makes with current court rules in hand, not something you need to work out before you call.

What your Burbank claim may be worth

Nobody can quote you a number over the phone, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What a claim is worth depends on the medical picture, how liability is apportioned, the wages you lost, and how much insurance coverage actually exists on the other side.

California is a pure comparative negligence state, which means your recovery is reduced by your share of fault but not eliminated by it. Being partly at fault is not the end of your case.

We work on a contingency fee: no fee unless we win. Costs are handled separately from fees, and we will explain exactly how they work in writing before you sign anything.

What to do in the first 48 hours

Call the police and make sure a report is generated; Burbank Police Department reports become the backbone of the liability fight later.

Photograph everything while it is still there — vehicle positions, debris, skid marks, the signal you had, the intersection name on the street sign, and your own injuries.

Get the other driver's insurance information, and get names and phone numbers for any witness. Witnesses disappear within hours and are almost impossible to find afterward.

Get medical attention the same day if you can. Then, before you give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer, talk to a lawyer. That statement is being taken for their benefit, not yours.

What the state's own crash data says about Burbank

The California Office of Traffic Safety ranks every city against others of similar size. For 2023 it counted 546 people killed or injured in Burbank traffic crashes, which placed Burbank 17th out of 62 comparable California cities. Forty-seven of those victims were pedestrians, ranking the city 11th, and nine were 65 or older, ranking it 6th. In the OTS rankings a rank of 1 is the worst in the group, so Burbank sits in the harder half of its peers for people hurt on foot. OTS cautions that its rankings are indicators of potential problems rather than proof of local conditions — but they match what we see in Burbank cases: the people who get hurt worst are the ones outside a vehicle. Source: California Office of Traffic Safety, OTS Crash Rankings, Burbank 2023.

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