If you walk anywhere in Bakersfield, you already know the feeling of standing at a wide arterial waiting for a gap that never quite comes. This summer, that feeling got some hard numbers behind it, and the City Council responded by changing how it plans to build streets. Both developments matter if you or someone in your family was hurt while walking.
What the new report found
A national study by Smart Growth America ranked the Bakersfield metro area the third deadliest in the country for pedestrians, as reported by Bakersfield Now on June 23, 2026. Between January and June of 2026, 90 pedestrians were injured on Bakersfield streets, more than in the same stretch of either 2025 or 2024. The report pointed at road design that prioritizes vehicle speed over the people crossing on foot.
Bakersfield Police Sgt. Caleb Kiser told the station that Union Avenue has been an area of concern for his entire career. The same reporting flagged the Oleander-Sunset neighborhood, where an 8-year-old was struck and killed in October 2024.
The city is changing how it builds streets
In early August 2026, the Bakersfield City Council passed a road safety resolution on a 4 to 3 vote. Public Works Director Zachary Meyer presented it. The resolution directs the city toward the Urban Street Design Guide and lists narrower travel lanes, reductions in the number of lanes, buffered bike lanes, and lower target speeds as priorities. Council Member Bob Smith summed up the reasoning simply: streets should be built so people are encouraged to be safer.
Separately, the Council approved a construction contract of roughly $14.4 million for improvements along the H Street corridor between Golden State Avenue and Highway 58.
None of that undoes an injury that already happened. But it does establish something useful in plain public record: the people who run this city have acknowledged that certain corridors are laid out in a way that puts people on foot at risk.
Why street design matters to your claim
Insurance adjusters handling pedestrian claims often start from the assumption that the person walking did something wrong. You crossed where you should not have. You stepped out. You were wearing dark clothing.
California law is more balanced than that. Under Vehicle Code section 21950, a driver must yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing in a marked crosswalk or in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, and drivers have a general duty to use due care and to reduce speed around pedestrians. California also follows comparative fault, which means that even if you share some responsibility, you are not automatically barred from recovering. Your compensation is reduced by your share instead.
That is why the physical details of the location matter so much. Lane width, signal timing, whether the nearest legal crossing was a quarter mile away, whether the streetlight was working: these are the facts that push back on a fault argument, and they are also the facts that disappear fastest.
Steps to take after a pedestrian crash in Bakersfield
- Get medical attention the same day, even if you feel like you walked away from it. Adrenaline hides head injuries and internal injuries, and a delay in treatment is the first thing an adjuster will point to.
- Make sure a police report gets written and write down the report number. Bakersfield PD handles most city streets. If the crash happened on a state route such as Highway 99 or Highway 58, the California Highway Patrol may be the agency taking the report instead.
- Photograph the location itself, not only the vehicle. Capture the crosswalk paint or the absence of it, the signal, the lighting, the width of the road, and what a driver approaching you could actually see.
- Get names and phone numbers of witnesses before they leave. Business employees and bus riders nearby are often the ones who saw the whole thing.
- Do not guess about speed, distance, or fault at the scene or on a recorded call. Say what you know and nothing more.
- Watch the deadlines. California generally allows two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. If a claim involves a public entity, such as a road condition maintained by a city, county, or the state, a written claim usually has to be presented within six months. That shorter window catches people off guard.
- Talk to a lawyer before you give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer.
Getting help
Our firm handles pedestrian and vehicle injury claims across Kern County, and we work on a contingency basis, so there are no attorney’s fees unless we win. If you were hurt walking in Bakersfield, we can review what happened, gather the records and scene evidence, and present the claim to the insurer so you are not doing it alone while you are still healing.
You can read more about how we handle these matters on our Bakersfield car accident page and our pedestrian accident page.