Fatal car crashes in El Cajon, CA: deadliest roads, 2020-2024

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 59 fatal crashes inside El Cajon, in which 61 people died. The roads with the most were I-8 with 11 fatal crashes, E Main St with 5 and Chase Ave with 4.

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

Each crash counted here is drawn from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), which is designed as a census of fatal traffic crashes nationwide. For El Cajon it lists 59 such crashes from 2020 through 2024, and they killed 61 people; the totals differ because a crash that kills two people is still one crash. The data for 2020 to 2023 are NHTSA's Final Files, and the 2024 data its Annual Report File, a first release that may be revised.

The yearly counts stayed between 9 and 14 crashes. 2021 had the most fatal crashes, 14, one more than 2022's 13, and the most deaths, 15. 2023 had the fewest, 9 crashes and 9 deaths. The other two years were 2020, with 12 crashes and 12 deaths, and 2024, with 11 crashes and 12 deaths in NHTSA's first release. In both 2021 and 2024, one crash killed two people; in the other years, every fatal crash killed one person.

El Cajon's 59 crashes and 61 deaths are each about 4 percent of San Diego County's five-year totals, 1,393 crashes and 1,486 deaths. With 61 deaths, El Cajon is tied for 34th among the California places in our guides, sharing that total with one other place. At the top of that list are Los Angeles (1,637 deaths) and San Diego (549), and California as a whole recorded 21,077 deaths in 19,496 fatal crashes.

More people died on foot in El Cajon than behind the wheel. Of the 61 killed, 25 were pedestrians, 24 were drivers and 8 were passengers. Four more were outside a vehicle in other ways: 2 on personal conveyances and 1 on a motorized personal conveyance, as FARS names those categories, and 1 bicyclist. In all, 29 of the 61 people who died, 48 percent, were not in a vehicle when they were struck.

The crash counts point the same way. Someone outside a vehicle, whether on foot, on a bicycle or on another conveyance, was involved in 29 of the 59 crashes, just under half. In 23 of them the first person or thing struck was a pedestrian. For anyone hurt on foot, a claim usually turns on where the person was crossing, the signal or crosswalk, the lighting and how fast the driver was going, and that evidence is easiest to gather in the first days.

The 32 vehicle occupants who died were 24 drivers and 8 passengers; 7 of them were riding a motorcycle or moped. When a driver or passenger is the one hurt, the claim usually runs against the other driver's liability insurance, and the disputes are familiar ones: who had the right of way, how fast each vehicle was moving and what the damage to the vehicles shows about the impact.

I-8 tops El Cajon's road table by a wide margin. Inside the city it had 11 fatal crashes and 11 deaths, with the latest in 2024, six crashes more than any other road. E Main St is second with 5 fatal crashes and 6 deaths, meaning one of its crashes killed two people; its latest was also in 2024. Chase Ave and Broadway tie for third with 4 fatal crashes and 4 deaths each, one fewer than E Main St; Chase Ave's latest was in 2024 and Broadway's in 2022.

Six more rows have 2 fatal crashes and 2 deaths each: El Cajon Blvd, State Route 67, Valley Lake Dr and Washington Ave, each with a latest crash in 2023; N 2nd St, in 2022; and Ballantyne St, in 2021. Counting all ten rows, the table covers 36 fatal crashes and 37 deaths, 61 percent of El Cajon's totals in each case, so 23 crashes were recorded on roads outside it. A road's place in the table reflects where crashes were recorded, not who caused them.

Evening had the most fatal crashes in El Cajon: 25 of the 59 happened between 6 p.m. and midnight. Noon to 6 p.m. added 16, and the two six-hour blocks from midnight to noon had the fewest, with 10 crashes before 6 a.m. and 8 after. On the calendar, Sunday stands apart with 15 crashes, six more than any other day; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday had 9 each, Thursday 5 and Monday only 3.

Darkness covered 36 crashes. Most of those, 25, were on roads with street lighting; 10 were on unlit roads, and for 1 the lighting is unknown. Twenty crashes happened in daylight and 2 at dusk, and the light condition was not reported for 1. The weather was clear for 49, cloudy for 5 and rainy for 4, with 1 not reported. Junction codes show 35 crashes away from any intersection, driveway or interchange, 16 at or related to an intersection, 3 related to driveway access, 1 on an entrance or exit ramp and 4 elsewhere within interchange areas.

Only 13 of the 59 crashes began with two vehicles in transport colliding (FARS treats a vehicle as in transport when it is moving or stopped in the roadway): 5 rear-end crashes, 5 angle crashes, 2 head-on and 1 same-direction sideswipe. The other 46 began some other way. Striking a pedestrian was the first harmful event in 23 of them; curbs came first in 8, parked vehicles, trees and people on personal conveyances in 3 each, and six other events or objects in 1 each. Thirty-eight crashes involved a single vehicle, 13 two vehicles and 8 three or more.

This example is invented, and its round figures serve only to show how California's rule works. A woman crossing at a marked crosswalk on an El Cajon street one afternoon is hit by a driver turning left. Her medical bills, lost pay and other losses come to $90,000. The driver's insurer does not dispute that its driver failed to yield, but it says she stepped off the curb after the signal had changed and assigns her 30 percent of the fault.

Under pure comparative negligence, California's rule, her share of the fault reduces what she can recover but does not cancel it. At 30 percent, $90,000 becomes $63,000. Even a finding that she was 70 percent at fault would leave her entitled to $27,000, an amount a state with a 50 or 51 percent bar would not allow. In a case like hers, the signal timing, any video and the witnesses' accounts decide where the percentage lands.

Insurance decides how much of that award is easy to collect. Because California is an at-fault state, she would claim against the driver's liability policy, and California drivers must carry at least 30/60/15. Read as dollars, that is $30,000 per person hurt, no more than $60,000 for everyone hurt in one crash, and $15,000 for property. A minimum policy would cover $30,000 of her $63,000, and the facts of the crash and the policies in place decide whether any other coverage pays the remaining $33,000.

Reporting comes first. Cal. Veh. Code § 16000(a) requires every driver in a California crash, at fault or not, to send the DMV an SR 1 (Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California) within 10 days if the crash hurt or killed anyone, even with a slight injury, or caused over $1,000 in damage to any one person's property. Crashes on private property count, and you can have an insurance agent, broker or legal representative file the form. Separately, if someone was injured or killed, the driver must notify law enforcement within 24 hours.

• If someone is hurt, call 911 first; before officers leave, ask which agency they are with and how to get a copy of the report.
• If you were walking, take photos of the crossing, the signal and the place you were hit, and note whether nearby street lights were on.
• Footage from storefront and doorbell cameras can be overwritten quickly, so ask for it in the first days.
• Send the SR 1 within the 10 days, and keep a copy for your records.
• Request the crash report from whichever agency investigated; for a California Highway Patrol crash, the CHP's online request page explains how.
• Where a city, county or other California public entity could be responsible, keep the six-month government claim deadline in mind (Gov. Code § 911.2).

The San Diego County Superior Court is where a lawsuit over an El Cajon crash would generally be filed, although the facts of some cases point to another court, which an attorney can identify. Two years is California's general limit for an injury lawsuit (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1), and a family's wrongful death claim generally has the same two years, counted from the death. If the injured person is under 18, that clock generally stays paused until the 18th birthday (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 352(a)).

Claims against public bodies run on a separate track. Before suing a city, county or other California public entity, an injured person must generally present a government claim, and that claim has its own deadline: six months (Gov. Code § 911.2). State law sets the period for suing after that claim separately. For someone injured while working, workers' compensation may apply as well: tell the employer within 30 days, and expect a one-year limit for the claim, which the California Division of Workers' Compensation administers.

California's rule is what keeps the woman's claim alive at 70 percent fault, where she would still receive $27,000, and it gives her $63,000 at 30 percent, because fault generally reduces an award there rather than erasing it. Other states draw the line elsewhere. In Maryland, Alabama, Virginia and North Carolina, the contributory negligence rule generally leaves a person who was even slightly at fault with no recovery, so at 30 percent she could get nothing. Under the modified comparative negligence rules many other states use, a share of 50 or 51 percent ends recovery, so at 70 percent she would also get nothing there.

The state's insurance system matters too. California is an at-fault state, so the woman's claim goes against the driver's liability coverage. In no-fault states such as Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and New York, the first payments for certain losses come from the injured person's own policy, whatever the cause of the crash, and a pain-and-suffering claim against the other driver generally requires an injury that meets the state's tort threshold, as that state's law defines it. Deadlines also vary: Tennessee allows one year for most injury claims.

An attorney must evaluate the facts of any crash before anyone can say whether a claim exists. 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 most personal injury attorneys work on contingency. If you were hurt in a crash in El Cajon, on foot or in a vehicle, you can request a free case review.

• What do federal records show about fatal car crashes in Rialto?
• What do federal records show about fatal car crashes in Compton?
• Which U.S. cities had the most fatal car accidents in 2023?
• What should you do after a car accident?

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

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

Need local rules? Choose your state from the injury law guides hub or read the statute of limitations by state.