Van Nuys sits at the geographic center of the San Fernando Valley, and its streets carry some of the heaviest traffic anywhere in Los Angeles. The 405 runs along the neighborhood's eastern edge, the 101 passes just to the south, and wide commercial corridors like Van Nuys Boulevard, Sherman Way, Victory Boulevard, and Roscoe Boulevard funnel commuters, delivery trucks, buses, and rideshare drivers through the community at all hours. When that much traffic squeezes through one neighborhood, collisions follow. If you were injured in a car accident in Van Nuys, Nazaryan Law, APC is ready to stand between you and the insurance company.
Our firm is headquartered in Woodland Hills, a short drive west on the 101 or straight down Victory Boulevard. That matters, because your lawyer should know the roads where your crash happened, the hospitals where you were treated, and the courthouse where your case may land. Attorney Artin Nazaryan handles his clients' cases personally. You will not be passed off to a call center or a rotating cast of case managers. The consultation is free, and you pay no fee unless we win.
Van Nuys is one of the core communities served by our San Fernando Valley personal injury practice, and the pages below explain exactly how we approach a Valley car accident claim from the first phone call to the final check.
Every neighborhood in Los Angeles has traffic, but Van Nuys has a particular combination of features that produces crashes. The 405 corridor through the Valley is congested for much of the day, and the interchange where the 405 meets the 101 near the Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks border is notorious among Southern California drivers. When freeway traffic locks up, drivers spill onto surface streets like Sepulveda Boulevard, Van Nuys Boulevard, and Woodman Avenue, bringing freeway speeds and freeway impatience into residential and commercial corridors.
Van Nuys Boulevard itself is one of the busiest commercial strips in the Valley, lined with auto dealerships, retail, restaurants, and the civic center. Ongoing light rail construction along the boulevard has added lane closures, shifted signals, and confused lane markings to an already crowded street, and construction zones are a well known recipe for rear-end and sideswipe collisions. Sherman Way presents a different danger: it is a long, straight, east-west arterial that invites speeding, especially at night, and its intersections with Van Nuys Boulevard, Kester Avenue, and Sepulveda Boulevard see constant conflict between through traffic and left-turning vehicles.
The area around Van Nuys Airport adds yet another layer. The airport is one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country, and the industrial blocks around Balboa Boulevard, Woodley Avenue, and Saticoy Street generate steady truck, van, and service vehicle traffic that mixes poorly with commuters cutting through to avoid the freeways. Add the Metro G Line busway crossings, the courthouse and government traffic around the Van Nuys Civic Center, and the sheer density of driveways and curb cuts along the boulevards, and you have a neighborhood where a careful driver can do everything right and still get hit.
Nazaryan Law, APC focuses on personal injury, and motor vehicle collisions are the heart of the practice. Here are the categories we see most often in Van Nuys.
High-speed crashes on the 405 and the 101 tend to produce the most serious injuries we handle. Sudden slowdowns near the interchange, aggressive lane changes, and merging traffic at the Burbank Boulevard, Victory Boulevard, and Sherman Way on-ramps all contribute. Freeway cases often involve multiple vehicles and disputed accounts of who hit whom first, which is why early investigation, witness statements, and the California Highway Patrol report matter so much.
Left-turn collisions, red light violations, and broadside impacts are common at the major signalized intersections along Van Nuys Boulevard, Sherman Way, Victory Boulevard, and Vanowen Street. A broadside impact at boulevard speed can total a vehicle and leave the occupants with spine, shoulder, and head injuries. These cases frequently turn on signal timing, witness credibility, and physical evidence, and they reward a law firm that moves quickly to preserve all three.
Stop-and-go traffic, construction zones, and distracted drivers make rear-end collisions the most frequent crash type on Van Nuys surface streets. Insurance carriers like to dismiss these as minor because the property damage sometimes looks modest, but a rear impact can inflict real cervical and lumbar injuries even at moderate speeds. We do not let an adjuster's photographs of a bumper decide what your neck is worth.
Hit-and-run collisions are a persistent problem across the east Valley. When the at-fault driver flees, your recovery often depends on your own uninsured motorist coverage, canvassing for cameras and witnesses, and a properly documented police report. We help clients pursue every available avenue, including claims on their own policies, without letting their carrier treat them like an adversary.
Between the airport-adjacent industrial zone, the dealerships, and the constant Uber, Lyft, and delivery traffic on the boulevards, Van Nuys crashes often involve a driver who was working at the time. That can open commercial policies with far higher limits than a personal auto policy, but it also brings corporate insurers and defense teams into the picture early. Identifying every policy in play is one of the most valuable things a lawyer does in these cases.
Busy crosswalks near the civic center, the courthouse complex, and the G Line stations put people on foot in constant proximity to impatient drivers. A vehicle striking a pedestrian or cyclist is still a motor vehicle claim against the driver's auto policy, and these injuries are often severe. We handle them with the same urgency as any catastrophic crash.
No two crashes produce identical injuries, but after years of handling Valley collision cases, we see recurring patterns:
Many Van Nuys crash victims are first treated at Valley Presbyterian Hospital on Vanowen Street or by urgent care providers nearby. Wherever you treat, the medical record is the backbone of your claim. Gaps in treatment, missed appointments, and unreported symptoms all become ammunition for the insurance company later. Our office helps clients stay on top of care, and we gather every record, bill, and imaging report before we ever talk numbers with a carrier.
The steps you take immediately after a Van Nuys collision shape the entire claim:
After a crash, the other driver's insurance company may call within a day or two sounding friendly and helpful. Understand what is actually happening: a trained adjuster is building a file to pay you as little as possible. Early tactics include requesting a recorded statement to lock you into minimizing your injuries, offering a fast check before you have even finished diagnosis, and blaming pre-existing conditions for anything that shows up on an MRI.
When Nazaryan Law, APC takes your case, all of that communication runs through our office. We notify the carriers, preserve the evidence, direct the property damage claim, and build a documented demand supported by your complete medical records, billing, imaging, and wage loss proof. We negotiate from a position of preparation, and if the carrier will not pay what the case is worth, we litigate. Adjusters evaluate claims differently when the file across the table is trial ready.
A hard truth about driving in the Valley: a meaningful share of drivers on the road carry no insurance at all, and many more carry only minimal limits that cannot begin to cover a serious injury. If you are hit by an uninsured driver, an underinsured driver, or a hit-and-run driver who is never found, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, often written as UM and UIM, may be the most important protection you have.
UM and UIM claims are made against your own insurance company, but do not expect your carrier to roll out a red carpet. Your insurer evaluates your claim with the same skepticism a third-party carrier would. We handle UM and UIM claims regularly, we know the arbitration procedures that govern them, and we hold carriers to the coverage their policyholders paid for.
Under California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, you generally have two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. Miss that deadline and the claim is almost always gone, no matter how strong the facts were.
There is a much shorter trap that catches Van Nuys victims off guard. If your crash involved a government vehicle, such as a Metro bus, a city truck, or a police cruiser, or if a dangerous roadway condition contributed to the collision, you generally must present a government claim within six months under Government Code section 911.2 before you can sue. With active construction along Van Nuys Boulevard and government facilities clustered around the civic center, these scenarios come up more often here than people expect. If there is any chance a public entity is involved, call a lawyer immediately.
For a fuller walkthrough of the claim process statewide, read our guide on how to file a car accident claim in California.
There is no shortage of billboards promising millions. Here is what we actually offer:
Our home base gives us deep familiarity with the whole west and central Valley. You can read about our flagship practice on our Woodland Hills car accident lawyer page, and we serve neighboring communities as well, including Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood.
It depends on where the collision happened. LAPD investigates crashes on Van Nuys surface streets, while the California Highway Patrol handles the 405 and the 101. Reports typically take days to weeks to become available. When you hire our firm, we request and review the report for you and compare it against the physical evidence, because officers occasionally get the diagram or the statements wrong, and an early correction can change the whole liability picture.
The Van Nuys courthouse complex is one of the busiest in Los Angeles County, and many Valley injury cases end up litigated through the Los Angeles Superior Court system. Most claims settle before trial, but carriers pay closer attention when the law firm on the other side actually files lawsuits and works them up. We prepare every case as though it will be tried.
California follows pure comparative negligence under Li v. Yellow Cab Co., which means your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault rather than eliminated. If you were twenty percent responsible, you can still recover the other eighty percent of your damages. Do not let an adjuster talk you out of a claim just because you think you share some blame; assigning fault percentages is a negotiation, not a verdict.
Not before you understand your injuries. Quick offers usually arrive before diagnosis is complete, and once you sign a release, the claim is over forever, even if you later need surgery. Let us review the offer for free. If it genuinely covers your damages, we will say so.
Nothing up front. We work on contingency, meaning our fee comes out of the recovery we obtain for you. If there is no recovery, you owe us no attorney fee. The consultation is free, and you will speak with the attorney, not a screener.
Yes, significantly. Claims against public entities generally require a government claim within six months under Government Code section 911.2, and public entities defend claims aggressively. The same short deadline can apply when a dangerous road condition, such as a defective signal or a hazardous construction zone, contributed to the crash. Do not wait on these cases.
The insurance company started working on your claim the day of the crash. Every day you wait is a day the evidence gets colder and the adjuster's file gets stronger. Whether your collision happened on the 405, at a Van Nuys Boulevard intersection, or in a parking lot off Sherman Way, we are ready to take it from here.
Call Nazaryan Law, APC at (818) 900-1888 for a free consultation, or contact us online. Our office is at 21600 Oxnard Street, Suite 1040, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, minutes from Van Nuys. There is no fee unless we win, and there is no pressure, just honest answers about your case.
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