Hit and Run in Reseda or Van Nuys: What to Do in the First 48 Hours

If a driver hit you on Sherman Way, Sepulveda, Reseda Boulevard or any Valley street and kept going, the first 48 hours decide most of what happens next. Call 911 before anything else, because the time stamp on that call proves you reported the crash within the 24 hours that your own uninsured motorist coverage requires under Insurance Code 11580.2. Then write down every detail of the car while it is fresh, get treated, and start asking neighbors and businesses for video before their systems overwrite it.

Those steps sound obvious in a calm moment. In the minutes after a hit and run, with your car sideways on Roscoe, people skip them, and the claim pays for it months later. How uninsured motorist coverage works is covered in our guide to hit-and-run uninsured motorist claims in the Valley; this one is about what to do, in what order, and who to call.

Hour one: 911, and why the time stamp matters

Call 911 from the scene even if you think you can walk it off. LAPD’s own guidance says any collision with injuries is a 911 call. Two clocks start when you make it.

The first is the uninsured motorist clock. Insurance Code 11580.2(b) covers a driver whose identity is unknown only if the crash involved physical contact with you or your car and was reported “within 24 hours to the police department of the city where the accident occurred,” or to the sheriff or CHP outside city limits. A 911 call logged at 9:14 p.m. that night is your proof the report was made in time. A walk-in report three days later is not. The statute then gives you 30 days after that police report, not 30 days after the crash, to file a sworn statement with your insurer saying you have a claim against a driver who cannot be identified.

Vehicle Code 20008 runs the second clock: a written report to CHP or city police within 24 hours of any injury crash. If no officer comes out, that burden is yours.

What to write down before you leave

Memory of a fleeing car degrades within hours. Put these in your phone’s notes app so they carry a time stamp.

• The vehicle: color, body style, make if you know it, any part of the plate, and where you saw damage.
• Direction of travel and the last place you saw it, for example “westbound Vanowen, turned north on Tampa.”
• The exact time and spot, including which lane or which corner of the intersection.
• Every witness and phone number, and a photo of any car that stopped to help.
• Cameras. Gas stations, strip malls, apartment entries and porches all point cameras at the street. Photograph each one.
• Your injuries and your car, photographed before anything is moved.

Who investigates: LAPD Valley Traffic or CHP

Surface streets inside the City of Los Angeles belong to LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division, which investigates collisions and traffic crimes for the whole Valley Bureau, 2,823 street miles by LAPD’s count. Its front desk is 818-644-8000 and its detective desk is 818-644-8020. The station is at 7870 Nollan Place in Panorama City. LAPD’s non-emergency line is 877-275-5273 (877-ASK-LAPD).

Freeways are different. Vehicle Code 2400 gives the CHP “primary jurisdiction” over collision investigation on state highways built as freeways, so a hit and run on the 101, the 405, the 118, the 170 or the 5 is a CHP case. Reseda Boulevard is LAPD; the 405 at Roscoe is CHP. If you are not sure, call the Valley Traffic front desk and ask.

LAPD’s online reporting system accepts property-damage-only hit and runs and minor collisions, but it excludes any incident where someone was injured, where there is a known suspect, or on a state highway. Injury hit and runs are reported by phone or in person.

Days one to three: the video canvass

Detectives work these cases with cameras. In the Granada Hills case from August 30, 2026, where a woman in her 70s crossing Chatsworth Street near Louise Avenue was struck by an eastbound gray Honda Accord that fled, LAPD released home security video from a nearby residence. Local coverage of the April 2026 fatal at Winnetka Avenue and Sherman Way reported that Valley Traffic detectives asked residents to preserve doorbell and dashcam footage.

You do not need to wait for a detective. Walk the block within two or three days, knock on doors, and ask each resident to save the clip from that date and time before the system overwrites it. Do the same at any business with a camera facing the street.

Ring stopped letting police request footage through its app in January 2024, and published reports indicate it brought back a consent-based request tool in 2025 through Axon’s evidence system. Either way the owner decides whether to share, so a neighbor you have already asked is the fastest path to the plate number.

The City of Los Angeles standing reward

Los Angeles keeps a standing hit-and-run reward on the books, with amounts set by tier in Los Angeles Administrative Code section 19.129.15: up to $50,000 for a hit and run causing death, $25,000 for permanent serious injury, $5,000 for other injury, and $1,000 for property damage only. The reward is for information leading to the driver’s identification, apprehension and conviction, or resolution through civil compromise, and payment is at the City Council’s discretion.

The application goes on the City Clerk’s “Information and Application for Reward” form to LAPD within six months of the date of the crash. The money goes to the person who provides the information, so mention it when you are asking neighbors for video. In the Granada Hills case above, LAPD listed a reward of up to $25,000 and asked anyone with information to call Officer Reyes at Valley Traffic, 818-644-8114.

Days two to ten: the paperwork

Your insurer. Report the crash to your own company promptly and say it was a hit and run. Give the report number, the date, the location and the fact that you were injured. Decline the recorded statement until you have spoken with a lawyer; our post on recorded statements after a California car accident explains why a 20-minute call two days after a crash follows the claim for years. If your policy has Med Pay, ask for it now. The Department of Insurance describes it as coverage that “can pay for immediate medical care, no matter who is at fault,” and it does not wait for the injury claim to resolve.

The DMV. Vehicle Code 16000 requires a driver in any crash with injury, death or more than $1,000 in property damage to file an SR-1 within 10 days. The DMV says this is required “in addition to any other report made to the police, CHP, or your insurance company,” and it can be filed online. Vehicle Code 16004 lets the DMV suspend the license of a driver who fails to file, even though the other driver was the one who fled.

Your sworn statement. Within 30 days after your police report, your insurer needs the statement under oath described above. Most companies have a form; if not, the statement needs to say that you have a claim against a person whose identity cannot be determined and set out the facts.

Getting the collision report

LAPD collision reports are requested online through LexisNexis or by mail, and LAPD asks that you “allow a minimum of 45 days from the date of the collision” before requesting one online. The fee is $19; reports involving an arrest, a fatality or a juvenile go by mail. CHP reports go through form CHP 190, with fees starting at $10.

Collision reports are not public records. Vehicle Code 20012 makes them confidential except to people with a “proper interest,” including the drivers, any named injured person, the vehicle owners and an attorney who declares under penalty of perjury that he or she represents one of them. A Public Records Act request is not the channel; a 20012 request is. Our police report and hospital guide for the Valley walks through the request.

Why the Valley numbers matter to your case

Published figures suggest the odds of an arrest are low. NBC LA, reporting on LAPD data for 2022 through 2024, described more than 7,500 injury hit and runs a year in the city with about 1 percent leading to an arrest. Crosstown, working from LAPD Traffic Division data, counted 108 hit-and-run deaths citywide in 2023 and 98 in 2024. Most hit-and-run drivers are never found, and the claim usually ends up with your own policy.

The City’s 2017 Vision Zero Action Plan lists priority corridors from its High Injury Network, and several run through the Valley: Reseda Boulevard from Parthenia Street to Victory Boulevard, Roscoe Boulevard from the 405 to Woodman Avenue, Saticoy Street from Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Jordan Street, Sepulveda Boulevard from Nordhoff Street to Rinaldi Street, Van Nuys Boulevard from Beachy Avenue to San Fernando Road, and Lankershim Boulevard from Chandler Boulevard to Victory Boulevard. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s summary of the program puts 65 percent of deaths and serious injuries to people walking and biking on 6 percent of the city’s street miles.

LAPD’s publicized 2026 cases tell the same story. A pedestrian was killed on Victory Boulevard near Troost Avenue in North Hollywood on June 11, 2026, and another on Magnolia Boulevard just west of Tujunga Avenue on May 5, 2026. The April 10, 2026 fatal at Winnetka Avenue and Sherman Way involved a Prius and a Camaro, both of which fled. Each carries a reward of up to $50,000. If you were on foot, our pedestrian accident page covers the comparative negligence argument insurers raise when a pedestrian was outside a crosswalk; under Li v. Yellow Cab that argument reduces a recovery but does not eliminate it.

The two-year rule for uninsured motorist claims

California’s general deadline for an injury lawsuit is two years under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1. Uninsured motorist claims have a parallel two-year rule that is satisfied differently, and this is the one people miss. Under Insurance Code 11580.2(i)(1), no claim accrues under the policy unless, within two years of the accident, a lawsuit was filed against the uninsured driver, the amount due was agreed, or you “formally instituted arbitration proceedings by notifying the insurer in writing sent by certified mail, return receipt requested.”

A file full of emails with your insurer does not meet that requirement. A certified-mail arbitration demand does, and it goes out well before the two-year mark, because the alternative is a claim that is barred while the company is still asking for records.

Key points

• Call 911 from the scene; the logged time is your proof of the 24-hour police report that Insurance Code 11580.2 requires.
• City surface streets are LAPD Valley Traffic Division cases (818-644-8000); Valley freeways are CHP cases under Vehicle Code 2400.
• Injury hit and runs cannot be filed online, and doorbell and business video should be requested within days.
• The City’s standing reward is tiered at up to $50,000, $25,000, $5,000 and $1,000, with a six-month application window.
• File the SR-1 within 10 days, the sworn statement within 30 days of the police report, and request the collision report after 45 days for $19.
• A UM claim must be settled, sued on, or demanded for arbitration by certified mail within two years of the crash.

Frequently asked questions

If a driver hit you and left, in Reseda, Van Nuys, Granada Hills, North Hills or anywhere else in California, call Manoukian Law Firm at (818) 818-5031 or reach us through our contact page. Our car accident page describes how we build these cases. Consultations are free and there is no fee unless we recover for you.