Encino Hit and Run Lawyer

A driver hits you on Ventura Boulevard, or on a quiet street off Balboa Boulevard or White Oak Avenue, and speeds away. You are hurt, scared, and holding almost no information. That is when you need an Encino hit and run lawyer. Your claim rides on a short list of steps, and two of them carry deadlines of 24 hours and 30 days. Miss one and your own insurer can say it owes you nothing. Attorney Moe Abdallah handles motor vehicle injury cases only, and hit and run crashes are one of the case types he takes. He looks for video, works with LAPD, and presses your uninsured motorist claim when the other car is never found. Call (323) 716-1992 any hour for a free review. You pay no fee unless he wins. Below you will find what to do in Encino, what the law requires, and where the deadlines hide.

The first hour after a driver flees in Encino

If you can, call 911 and ask for police and paramedics, even if you feel fine. Adrenaline hides injuries. Encino sits inside the City of Los Angeles, so LAPD writes the report. The West Valley Community Police Station, at 19020 Vanowen St. in Reseda, serves Encino and answers at 818-374-7611. LAPD's Valley Traffic Division, at 7870 Nollan Place in Panorama City, handles traffic work across the Valley. Before the scene clears, collect what you can about the car that left. Write down the color, make, damage, any plate letters, and the direction it went. Photograph your own damage, skid marks, and broken glass or plastic on the pavement. If a bystander saw it, get a name and a phone number. Bystanders on Ventura Boulevard leave within minutes, and memory fades fast. Get the report number and the officer's name. Then get checked out. Encino Hospital Medical Center sits at 16237 Ventura Blvd., and Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center and Northridge Hospital Medical Center are nearby. Tell the doctors exactly how the crash happened so your chart ties each injury to it. Gaps in treatment are the first thing an adjuster points to. Call us as soon as you can, because the clock on your uninsured motorist coverage starts at the crash, not when you feel ready.

Your uninsured motorist coverage and its three conditions

When the driver who hit you cannot be identified, California treats that car as uninsured. Your own uninsured motorist coverage, called UM, can then pay for your injuries. Insurance Code section 11580.2 sets three conditions. The injury must come from physical contact with the fleeing vehicle. You must report the crash to city police within 24 hours. And you must file a sworn statement with your own insurer within 30 days after that report. Miss one, and the insurer will say there is no coverage. UM pays for bodily injury, not for your car. If you bought collision coverage, that is usually where car damage goes. Many Encino drivers have never read their own policy. Pull your declarations page and find the UM line. California's minimum liability limits are now $30,000 per person and $60,000 per crash, and UM may not be set below those numbers. Take one client. A woman was rear-ended by a driver who fled, with no police report, after other firms turned her down. Moe took the case and recovered a $100,000 policy-limit UM settlement. Past results do not predict a similar outcome, and each case turns on its own facts. But the lesson holds: a fled driver does not end your claim.

Finding a driver who fled: shop cameras, doorbells and paint

Video is often the strongest lead in a hit and run. Ventura Boulevard is a long commercial strip, and many banks, restaurants, gas stations and shops point cameras at their lots and sidewalks. Residential streets such as Hayvenhurst Avenue, Louise Avenue and Densmore Avenue have doorbell cameras on front porches. Many systems record over old footage in days, so speed matters. A lawyer can send preservation letters asking owners to save footage. Physical evidence helps too. Headlight fragments, grille pieces and paint left at the scene can point to a make and model. Your own car may carry transfer paint from the other vehicle. Do not wash it or repair it until it has been photographed. If you were hit while riding in someone else's car, a dash camera or phone may have caught the plate. Police help has limits. LAPD may canvass for video, but officers carry heavy caseloads. A lawyer can follow up, keep a list of every camera that might have caught the crash, and turn up witnesses the first officers never met. Even when the other driver is never found, this work builds the record your UM insurer will test. It shows the crash was real, that contact happened, and that a car fled.

Getting your hit and run report from LAPD

You need the LAPD traffic collision report for two reasons. It proves you reported the crash within the 24-hour window, and it records what officers saw. LAPD lets you request it online through its Traffic Collision Report page. Allow at least 45 days after the collision. Reports that involve an arrest, a fatality or a juvenile, and older reports issued before Feb. 1, 2016, must be requested by mail. Send LAPD's Traffic Collision Report Request form with a $19.00 check or money order payable to LAPD to the Document Processing Unit, P.O. Box 30158. A recorded status line is available at (213) 486-8130. Expect the suspect vehicle to show as unknown or partly described. That is normal. What matters is that the report exists, that it notes contact, and that it carries a date and time. Two other reports matter. Any driver in a crash with injury, or more than $1,000 in damage, must file an SR-1 with the DMV within 10 days (Vehicle Code section 16000(a)). Your insurer will also want written notice. The 24-hour report is a legal condition of UM coverage, not a suggestion. If you missed it, call us anyway so we can review your policy and the facts before you give up.

No contact, a driver found later, and other twists

Some fled-driver crashes do not fit the neat version. Say a car cut you off, you swerved and hit a pole, and the other car never touched you. UM's physical contact rule can block that claim under the statute, and the insurer will say so. Cases like this need a close look at what the evidence shows, and sometimes other coverage or another defendant is involved. Do not assume you are out of luck. Call and ask. If the driver is found and has insurance, the case becomes an ordinary liability claim. Then the problem can be low limits. A $30,000 per person policy runs out quickly after surgery. When the at-fault limit is too small, your own underinsured motorist coverage may pick up the gap. Proposition 213 also matters. If you owned an uninsured car involved in the crash, or drove without proof of insurance, you generally cannot recover pain and suffering, with a narrow exception when the other driver is convicted of DUI (Civil Code section 3333.4). California also uses pure comparative negligence, so partial fault reduces your award instead of ending it (Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804). Leaving an injury crash is a crime. It can be charged as a felony or a misdemeanor, punishable by a state prison term or up to one year in county jail, a fine of $1,000 to $10,000, or both. If someone is killed or permanently, seriously hurt, the prison term rises to 2, 3 or 4 years (Vehicle Code section 20001(b)). A criminal case helps, but it does not replace your civil claim.

Deadlines, the City of Los Angeles and where your case is filed

You generally have two years from the crash to sue (Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1). A UM claim has its own two-year rule. Within two years you must sue the uninsured motorist, agree on the amount with your insurer, or start arbitration by certified mail, return receipt requested (Insurance Code section 11580.2(i)). Do not let a friendly adjuster run out that clock. If a City vehicle hit you and left, or a bad road condition played a part, a shorter rule applies. Claims against the City of Los Angeles must be filed with the City Clerk within six months. The form is at claims.lacity.org, or you can mail or hand deliver it to City Clerk, 200 North Spring Street, Room 395, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Fax and email are not accepted. A crash involving a Metro bus runs through Metro's own claims process. Under LA Superior Court Local Rule 2.3 (2022 text), unlimited civil injury cases are filed at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street, or the Antelope Valley Courthouse in Lancaster, not at the closer Van Nuys courthouse. The court's filing locator confirms the right one for your case. Moe's office is downtown at 527 W 7th St, Ste 924. Moe handles your case personally, moves on video before it disappears, and keeps you updated by call and text. You owe nothing unless he wins.

Talk to a Encino hit-and-run accident lawyer

Call (323) 716-1992 for a free, no-obligation case review. You pay nothing unless we win, and we'll handle the insurance companies for you. Learn more about our hit-and-run representation →

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