Fatal car crashes in Apple Valley, CA: deadliest roads, 2020-2024

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 61 fatal crashes inside Apple Valley, in which 64 people died. The roads with the most were State Route 18 with 16 fatal crashes, Bear Valley Rd with 10 and Central Rd with 5.

Filing deadline, fault rule, insurance and the court for a crash in Apple Valley: Apple Valley, CA injury guide.

Apple Valley's figures below are taken from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a nationwide census of crashes on public roads that killed at least one person. For 2020 through 2024 it holds 61 fatal crashes in Apple Valley and 64 deaths. Four of the years come from NHTSA's Final Files; 2024 comes from the Annual Report File, a first release that NHTSA may revise once the final file for that year is out.

The yearly counts drifted upward and ended at their highest. Apple Valley had 11 fatal crashes and 13 deaths in 2020, then a low of 10 crashes and 10 deaths in 2021. Both 2022 and 2023 had 12 crashes and 12 deaths. The first release for 2024 shows 16 crashes and 17 deaths, four crashes more than any earlier year, though that figure is also the one most open to revision.

Measured against San Bernardino County, Apple Valley is a small share: 61 of the county's 1,803 fatal crashes and 64 of its 1,988 deaths, about 3 percent of each. Apple Valley ranks 32nd by deaths among the California places in our guides; Los Angeles has the most, 1,637. Statewide, FARS counts 19,496 fatal crashes and 21,077 deaths over the five years.

State Route 18 leads Apple Valley's table clearly. Its 16 fatal crashes, the latest in 2024, killed 16 people, exactly one in four of everyone who died on Apple Valley's roads in those years. Bear Valley Rd is second, six crashes behind, with 10 fatal crashes that killed 12 people; its most recent was also in 2024. Between them, those two roads carry 26 crashes and 28 deaths, 43 and 44 percent of the totals.

Central Rd and Dale Evans Pkwy are next, at 5 fatal crashes and 5 deaths apiece; Central Rd's latest was in 2024 and Dale Evans Pkwy's in 2022. Navajo Rd had 4 crashes and 4 deaths, the latest in 2024. The table ends with Outer Hwy 18 N, 2 crashes and 2 deaths with one in 2024, and Kiowa Rd, 2 and 2 with the latest in 2021. All seven rows together hold 72 percent of the crashes and deaths, 44 and 46 respectively; 17 crashes were recorded on roads outside the table.

A high count is not a finding about any driver. In a claim, what decides fault is the evidence from that one crash: whether the other driver yielded, the speed of each vehicle, whether headlights or street lights let each driver see the other, and what the investigating officer recorded. After a crash at night, photos taken at the same hour and early witness statements often matter most.

In the dark on unlit roads is where 26 of Apple Valley's 61 fatal crashes happened, the most of any light condition. That is seven more than the 19 in daylight and twice the 13 that happened after dark on lighted roads; one more happened in darkness with the lighting unknown, and 2 at dusk. In all, 40 of the 61 crashes came after dark, and 26 of those 40 were where no street lighting was recorded.

By the clock, the evening stands out. The six hours from 6 p.m. to midnight had 32 crashes, more than half of all of them, while noon to 6 p.m. had 13, midnight to 6 a.m. had 10 and 6 a.m. to noon only 5; one crash's hour is unknown. Sunday had 13 crashes and Tuesday 12, one fewer, followed by Saturday with 10; Friday had the fewest, 3. Clear weather prevailed in 56 crashes; 4 happened under clouds, and the weather was not reported for 1.

Twenty-five crashes began when two vehicles in transport, that is, moving or stopped in the roadway, collided: 17 angle crashes, 5 head-on, 1 rear-end and 2 sideswipes. The other 36 began with a pedestrian struck in 21, a curb in 4, a cyclist in 3, an embankment or a fence in 2 each, and a boulder, a rollover, an unfixed object or an unknown event in 1 each. Twenty crashes were at an intersection and 5 related to one, and single-vehicle and two-vehicle crashes were even, at 29 each.

Drivers make up most of the toll: 36 of the 64 people killed, 56 percent. Only 4 passengers died. Nine of the 40 people killed in or on vehicles, 14 percent of all deaths, were riding a motorcycle or moped; those riders are part of the driver and passenger totals. Outside vehicles, 21 pedestrians and 3 bicyclists died, so 24 of the dead, three in eight, were on foot or on a bike.

By crash rather than by person, a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle was involved in 24 of the 61. In 21 of those 24, a pedestrian was hit before anything else, and in the other 3 a cyclist was. For a person hit while walking or cycling, the claim usually goes against the driver's liability insurance, and on an unlit road at night the dispute often centers on what the driver could have seen, and when.

This scenario is hypothetical, with round numbers chosen to show the rule. A driver pulls out from a stop sign at night to cross a highway in Apple Valley and is hit broadside by a car whose driver was speeding and looking at a phone. She did not wait long enough for a gap, and her medical bills, lost wages and other losses reach $120,000. After the evidence comes in, a jury might find her 70 percent at fault for failing to yield and the other driver 30 percent at fault.

Under California's pure comparative negligence rule, she can still recover, but only the share that matches the other driver's fault: $36,000 of her $120,000. Where a state cuts off recovery for anyone more than 50 percent at fault, she would get nothing. The rule works both ways. If the other driver was hurt as well, his own claim against her would be reduced by his 30 percent share, so he could recover 70 percent of his losses.

Both claims would run against liability insurance, because California is an at-fault state. If the other driver carried only the California minimum of 30/60/15, his insurer would pay at most $30,000 toward her injuries, $6,000 short of her $36,000, with a $60,000 ceiling for all injured people in the crash and $15,000 for property damage. Any other coverage that might pay the $6,000 gap depends on the policies and the facts of the crash.

Cal. Veh. Code § 16000(a) sets a 10-day deadline for an SR 1 report to the DMV. It covers each driver involved in a crash that killed anyone, injured anyone even slightly, or damaged any one person's property by more than $1,000. Fault is irrelevant to this duty, and so is whether the crash was on a public road or private property; an insurance agent, broker or legal representative may submit the form for you. If the crash injured or killed someone, the driver also has 24 hours to report it to law enforcement.

• Call 911 for anyone injured, then note the responding agency and ask how to obtain the report.
• On an unlit road, come back at the same hour, or ask someone to, and photograph what a driver could see from each direction.
• Record whether headlights were on and where the vehicles came to rest, before they are moved if it is safe.
• Keep the DMV's SR 1 deadline in view: 10 days from the crash.
• Reports of crashes the California Highway Patrol investigated are requested through the CHP's crash-report page; for any other agency, ask that agency.
• Count six months for a government claim (Gov. Code § 911.2) if a city, county or other California public entity could be responsible.

The San Bernardino County Superior Court is the usual place for a lawsuit over an Apple Valley crash, though an attorney may find that a particular case belongs elsewhere. In California, the general deadline to file an injury lawsuit is two years (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1), and that two-year clock generally pauses for an injured child until age 18 (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 352(a)). For a fatal crash, the family's wrongful death claim generally runs on a two-year clock from the date of death (also § 335.1).

Public entities are different. For an injury involving a city, county or other California public entity, California requires a government claim within six months (Gov. Code § 911.2); that claim has its own deadline, and a separate rule of state law sets the time to file suit after it. If the crash happened during work, a workers' compensation claim may also be available through the California Division of Workers' Compensation; the employer generally must be notified within 30 days, and the claim generally filed within one year.

California's pure comparative negligence is why the driver in the example recovers $36,000 even at 70 percent fault. Under contributory negligence, the rule in North Carolina, Maryland, Alabama and Virginia, an injured person who was even slightly at fault is generally barred from recovering at all, so she would recover nothing, and so would the other driver at 30 percent. In the many states with a 50 or 51 percent bar, she would recover nothing, but the other driver could still recover 70 percent of his losses.

The insurance system changes the answer too. Because California is an at-fault state, each driver in the example would claim against the other's liability insurer. In no-fault states, among them New York, Florida, New Jersey and Michigan, people hurt in crashes look first to their own policies for certain losses, and the right to sue for pain and suffering generally turns on whether the injury meets the state's tort threshold, which state law defines. Time limits differ as well: Tennessee gives most injury claims one year.

Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, which means the fee is taken from any recovery rather than paid up front. Ask Legal Matters is a personal injury lead-generation service that collects free case review requests from injured people in the United States and shares them with independent attorneys and law firms. It is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in your state, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If you were hurt in a crash in Apple Valley, you can request a free case review.

• What do federal records show about fatal car crashes in Los Angeles?
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• What should you do after a car accident?

More on this type of claim: Car accidents: evidence, deadlines and when to ask an attorney.

• Apple Valley, California: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation

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