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

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 61 fatal crashes inside Fremont, in which 63 people died. The roads with the most were I-880 with 17 fatal crashes, Mission Blvd (State Route 238 / State Route 262) with 7 and I-680 with 5.

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

Fremont's five-year record in NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) holds 61 fatal crashes and 63 deaths, from 2020 through 2024. FARS gathers every crash on a U.S. public road that killed someone, coding the place, time, light, weather and each person involved. For 2020 to 2023 the figures come from NHTSA's Final Files. The 2024 figures come from the Annual Report File, the agency's first release for that year, which can be revised later.

The yearly counts swung widely. Fremont had 7 fatal crashes in 2020, the fewest, then 17 in 2021, the most, followed by 11 in 2022, 11 in 2023 and 15 in 2024. Deaths were 7, 17, 11, 11 and 17. In the first four years every fatal crash killed one person; in 2024, 15 crashes killed 17 people, so deaths that year matched 2021's 17 even though there were fewer crashes.

Every one of the 61 crashes was recorded in Alameda County, which had 488 fatal crashes and 517 deaths over the five years. Fremont therefore accounts for exactly one in eight of the county's fatal crashes and 12 percent of its deaths. California as a whole recorded 19,496 fatal crashes and 21,077 deaths. Among the California places in our guides, Fremont's 63 deaths rank 33rd; San Jose, with 326, and Los Angeles, with 1,637, are among the five highest.

I-880 leads Fremont's table by a wide margin, with 17 fatal crashes and 19 deaths from 2020 through 2024, the latest in 2024. That is 28 percent of the city's fatal crashes, and it is the one road in the table where deaths outnumber crashes. Mission Blvd (State Route 238 / State Route 262) is second with 7 crashes and 7 deaths, ten crashes behind, and I-680 third with 5 and 5; both had a fatal crash in 2024.

Ramp (I-880) and State Route 84 (street name not recorded) had 3 fatal crashes and 3 deaths each, the first with a crash as recent as 2024 and the second last in 2021. Five more roads in the table had 2 each: Fremont Blvd, last in 2024; Blacow Rd and Peralta Blvd (State Route 84), last in 2023; and Boyce Rd and Paseo Padre Pkwy, last in 2022. The ten rows account for 45 crashes and 47 deaths, so 16 crashes and 16 deaths were on roads outside the table. Counted by route signing, 25 of the 61 crashes were on roads signed as interstates and 14 on roads signed as state highways.

Fremont's fatal crashes lean toward weekends and nights. Saturday had 14 and Sunday 12, so the weekend holds 26 of the 61, 43 percent; Wednesday had 10, Thursday 9, Friday 7, Tuesday 5 and Monday 4. By hour, 22 crashes happened between 6 p.m. and midnight and 18 between midnight and 6 a.m., while 6 a.m. to noon had 12 and noon to 6 p.m. only 6; the hour was unknown for 3.

Thirty-four crashes happened after dark, 29 on lighted roads and 5 on unlit ones. Twenty happened in daylight, 5 at dawn and 1 at dusk, and for 1 the light was not reported. Skies were clear for 46 crashes and cloudy for 13, with rain in 2. Fifty-nine crashes were coded as urban and 2 as rural, and 3 happened in work zones, one each in a construction zone, a maintenance zone and a zone of unknown type.

A collision with another vehicle in transport was the most common first harmful event, the first thing to cause injury or damage, in 21 crashes; a pedestrian was struck first in 18 and a cyclist in 4. Those 21 collisions split evenly between 10 rear-end and 10 angle crashes, with 1 head-on. The remaining 18 began with a rollover, a parked or working vehicle, or an object such as a fence, tree, barrier or bridge pier. Thirty-four crashes were non-junction, 17 were at or related to an intersection and 6 were related to an entrance or exit ramp.

Drivers were 34 of the 63 people killed, 54 percent, and passengers 6. Pedestrians were 19, or 30 percent, and bicyclists 4. Twelve of the dead, 19 percent, were on a motorcycle or moped, which makes riders 12 of the 40 vehicle occupants killed; they are part of the driver and passenger counts, not extra deaths. By crash, 23 of the 61 crashes, 38 percent, involved a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle.

A motorcyclist's claim usually turns on whether the other driver saw the rider and how fast the rider was going, and both questions are argued from physical evidence: the damage to the bike and the car, marks on the road, the helmet and gear, and any video. For a pedestrian or cyclist, the questions are where the person was and what the driver could see. In both kinds of claim, the insurer will often argue that the injured person shares the fault, which is where California's rule matters.

This example is made up; its figures are round and hypothetical. Suppose you are riding a motorcycle in Fremont on a Saturday evening when a driver changing lanes moves into you without seeing you. You break a leg and a wrist, and your medical bills, lost income and pain and suffering are valued together at $200,000. The driver's insurer accepts that its driver changed lanes into you but argues you were going faster than the traffic around you, and it assigns you 35 percent of the fault.

Under California's pure comparative negligence rule, your award is reduced by your percentage of fault but not barred, even if you were mostly at fault. At 35 percent, $200,000 becomes $130,000. If a jury found your share was 55 percent, you would still recover $90,000, where a state that bars anyone more than 50 percent at fault would award nothing. Speed is the contested fact in a case like this, argued from the damage, any video, witnesses and data the vehicles stored.

California is an at-fault state, so the claim is made against the driver's liability policy. The minimum that policy must carry, 30/60/15, pays up to $30,000 for one injured person, $60,000 for everyone hurt in a single crash and $15,000 for property damage, which would include the motorcycle. A driver with only that coverage would leave $100,000 of a $130,000 award unpaid by the policy, so identifying every policy that might apply is an early task for an attorney.

The 24-hour rule comes first: a crash in which anyone was injured or killed must be reported to law enforcement within 24 hours. The DMV report follows. Within 10 days, each driver must file form SR 1, the Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California, whenever someone was hurt, however slightly, or killed, or any one person's property damage was more than $1,000 (Cal. Veh. Code § 16000(a)). Fault does not matter, private property is included, and an insurance agent, broker or legal representative may file the form for you.

Ask the investigating officer for the report number and request the report from that agency; for a California Highway Patrol investigation, the CHP's website describes how to request its reports. Get medical care promptly and keep every record and bill, along with a note of the days of work you miss. The steps below fit the patterns in Fremont's own crash record.

• On I-880, I-680 or a ramp, note the direction, the lane and the nearest exit; I-880 alone had 17 of Fremont's fatal crashes.
• If you were on a motorcycle, keep the helmet, gear and bike as they are, unrepaired, and photograph them.
• In a rear-end or lane-change crash, photograph where each vehicle was damaged and any marks on the road; 10 of the city's fatal crashes were rear-end collisions.
• Find out early whether the other vehicle belonged to a city, county or other California public entity. If it did, the government claim against that entity must be filed within 6 months (Gov. Code § 911.2), so speak with an attorney quickly.

The Alameda County Superior Court is the usual court for a lawsuit over a Fremont crash, though a case can belong in another court depending on the parties and the facts. California generally allows two years to file a personal injury lawsuit (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1). When a crash is fatal, the family's wrongful death claim generally has two years from the death under the same section.

If a city, county or other California public entity may share the blame, a separate step comes first: a government claim, which has its own deadline of 6 months (Gov. Code § 911.2); how long you then have to sue is set separately by state law. For an injured minor, the clock pauses until 18 (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 352(a)). Workers' compensation, which the California Division of Workers' Compensation oversees, generally needs notice to the employer within 30 days and a claim within one year.

California's rule is what keeps the rider in the example from losing everything at 55 percent fault. In many states, a share above 50 percent, or in some states a share of 50 percent, ends the claim. In contributory negligence states such as Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, the rule is harsher still: a person found even slightly at fault can generally be barred, so the insurer's 35 percent figure could leave a rider with nothing.

Insurance systems also differ. California is not a no-fault state: the at-fault driver's liability coverage pays for the harm that driver caused, up to its limits. In Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, which use no-fault insurance, an injured person's own personal injury protection pays certain losses first, and a suit for pain and suffering is generally allowed only for injuries that meet the state's threshold. Deadlines move as well; Tennessee sets one year for most injury claims, where California generally sets two.

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. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency. An attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists or how fault would be shared. If you were hurt in a crash in Fremont, whether riding, driving or walking, you can request a free case review.

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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.

• Fremont, California: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Motorcycle Accident Claims: Overcoming Rider Bias and Recovering Fully

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