Posts tagged "car accident"

Do drunk drivers deserve a break? Benjamin Serratos, a multiple-DUI offender, is currently in jail and awaiting trial for causing the car accident that killed one 18-year-old and severely injured two others.

The fatal accident on June 12 was also Serratos' third DUI behind the wheel, having previously been charged twice for drunk driving and once for drunk boating. Serratos was also convicted of pulling a BB gun on a strip club employee in 2006, and for almost cutting a man's ear off in a bar fight in 1999.

Even with his violent background, his multiple DUIs and now the death of 18-year-old Destanee Little - even with all of these things at Benjamin Serratos' feet, his attorney and family members are arguing for bail to be lowered to an amount that would see him released.

Kristen Ann Bedard was walking to work on the morning of November 23 when a car roared onto the sidewalk, striking and killing her. On his way to a doctor's appointment that morning, her brother drove past the emergency responders. Only later did he learn that it was his sister who had been hit.

On Monday, Becky Marie Anderson was sentenced to 16 years in prison for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence and causing an injury, and illegally being under the influence of a controlled substance.

A lesser penalty than the prosecution had originally sought; the 16-year prison sentence was a term of Anderson's plea agreement. For the family of the victim, it was not nearly enough. Bedard was only 36-years-old when she died, leaving behind a teenage son and daughter.

A squad car was nearly totalled and two police officers were hospitalized last Thursday when a speeding driver blew through a stop sign and broadsided the officers as they made their way through an intersection. The early-morning car accident took place in City Heights, next to Orange and Altadena avenues.

Witnesses described the car crash as a sudden explosion. Sleepers were jarred awake and those who were already up rushed outside to see what had happened. What they saw, was a smashed police car, severely damaged GMC pickup truck and number of other vehicles with minor to major damage caused by the out-of-control truck and flying debris.

The truck's driver, Robert Jose O'Connell, was not wearing a seatbelt and was thrown from the vehicle, suffering a traumatic head injury. Doctors are currently keeping O'Connell in a medically-induced coma to prevent further brain damage.

Both police officers were bruised and sore, but escaped the accident without major injury.

Marlene Resendiz was 17-years-old, engaged to be married and, according to her mother, dreamed of becoming a doctor. In late 2007, Marlene was struck and killed in a fatal car accident as she sprinted across East Grand Avenue in Econdido.

The car Tiffany St. Ives was driving carried Marlene 300 feet, the length of a football field, before St. Ives stopped to let her slide off the hood. Once Marlene's broken body had disappeared from the windshield, St. Ives sped off, leaving the teenager to die in the road.

From that day, until the day she was arrested, St. Ives did everything she could to destroy evidence of the hit-and-run. She had the car repainted, fixed and attempted to find someone who would get rid of it for her in Mexico. The man she approached for this eventually turned her in.

St. Ives was semi-famous in the San Diego area for her animal rescue farm, Purple Cow & Friends. Many who attended the trial could not understand how someone who cared so much for animals could show such disregard for human life.

Traffic was heavy in San Diego County over the weekend, with thousands traveling to and from the city to spend Memorial Day weekend with family and friends. City officials and police officers, anticipating the increased volume of people and vehicles, put out bulletins and released tips for enjoying the weekend safely.

Still, even the best laid plans cannot prevent all accidents, as was proved by the fatal accident involving a bicyclist in Oceanside on Friday night.

Just before midnight on Friday, 21-year-old Angel Escobedo attempted to cross several lanes of traffic on North River Road. Authorities believe that Escobedo turned into oncoming traffic, advertently or inadvertently, and was struck by an oncoming vehicle. After the car accident, Escobedo was rushed to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where he failed to recover and was declared brain dead early on Saturday morning.

The hit and run car accident that cost Taylor Tolleson his cycling career happened almost a year ago, but he still deals with the pain on a daily basis. The brain injury he suffered has caused him memory loss and he suffers from mood swings. The pain from broken vertebra in his back prevent him from hunching over his bike for too long, robbing him of the pleasure he used to derive from long bike rides.

Last week Tolleson sued the suspected hit and run driver, 25-year-old Thomas John Legan, and his father - to whom the car was registered. Even though Legan fled the scene of the accident, he has yet to be charged with a felony hit and run. He was released from jail on bond.

However, Santa Cruz District Attorney Bob Lee is taking another look at the case and may choose to reopen the investigation into the car accident. Legan has been given several speeding tickets in the past and was arrested last December on suspicion of DUI. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Drunk driving causes tens of thousands of California car accidents every year, resulting in thousands of injuries and fatalities. State Assemblyman Jerry Hill is among those who believe that California's DUI penalties could be tougher on those convicted of drunk driving, and he is currently attempting to push forward a bill to strengthen them.

However, fears of an overpopulated prison system and the increased cost to carry out Hill's plan are threatening to put a damper on the bill's momentum. Currently, he is working with members of the Appropriations Committee to cut the bill's cost down.

There are two major changes to current law present in Hill's bill.

For one, California judges would have the ability to permanently revoke an individual's license following a third DUI conviction. Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the California DUI Lawyers Association have come out strongly against this provision, and Hill seems willing to reconsider giving judges the ability to grant drivers a second chance.

It is getting hard to look at any vehicle these days without seeing the potential for danger. The San Diego car accident involving a Lexus first blew the lid off of years of hidden problems in Toyota vehicles. Now, increased scrutiny of Toyota is bleeding over into other car lines, with General Motor's Hummer H3 model becoming the latest victim of recall.

While the problem was nowhere near as bad as those facing Toyota, GM still took a proactive stance on Wednesday, recalling more than 160,000 Hummer H3 models due to problems with the vehicles' hood louver (fake vent). Recently, complaints had come in regarding the piece's propensity to become detached during use on the road.

Not only dangerous for those driving Hummer H3s, the hood vents could also fly into other cars, causing drivers to swerve or break - potentially leading to a car accident. The recall applies to vehicles produced between 2006 and 2010.

The car accident left former Navy Captain Jack Kriz with liver, respiratory and kidney failure. 

It also left him with a traumatic brain injury, requiring nearly a year of rehabilitation and hundreds of hours of therapy. Two years after the accident, Kriz remains bound to a wheelchair and will never walk again, much less play sports with his children.

As for the man who tore Jack Kriz's life apart?

Nicholas Griffith was driving with a suspended license, due to a prior DUI arrest, when he smashed his pickup into Kriz's Toyota Prius, demolishing the front end and trapping Kriz inside. One would think a car accident like that, leaving the other driver with a traumatic brain injury, would make a person rethink his or her decisions and take more responsibility. 

Still, as Jack Kriz was struggling through the agonizing recovery process, Griffith was stopped for a second DUI.

As San Francisco's Streetsblog highlighted in a recent article, more Americans die in car accidents every year than from handgun injuries. Even so, the laws penalizing drivers involved in fatal accidents or who have caused serious injury are much less strict than those applied to crimes involving handguns.

In most cases, as long as a driver is not intoxicated, they will pay their insurance deductable and a fine of $70 for "bodily injury," or $95 if an accident results in "great bodily injury."

This seemingly light penalty seems a poor fit with California's reputation as one of the most dangerous states for bikers. Biking advocates have long protested the light penalties applied to dangerous drivers and called for more discouraging sentences for those involved in car accidents with bike riders and pedestrians.

Toyota announced more recalls this week - this time for the Lexus GX 460 sport-utility vehicle - due to problems with the vehicle's stability control system. This followed a Consumer Reports advisory on April 13th, which warned consumers not to purchase the GX 460 SUV due to a high danger of rollover car accidents.

The problem was discovered during Consumer Reports' emergency-handling tests, in which the SUV repeatedly slid out. In fact, the Lexus GX 460 slid out more than any of the other 95 SUV models profiled in the publication's current auto ratings.

Compared past complaint that have eventually ended in recall, Toyota actually moved pretty quickly to stem this potential problem. Thousands of Lexus owners in the United States will be able to get their stability control systems adjusted beginning in May. The fix, which Lexus dealers will be getting material for in late April, is estimated to take about an hour.

Sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles has been at the heart of a number of car accidents, several of them fatal - including one in San Diego that cost the lives of an off duty police officer and three of his family members. Since then, the case against Toyota has more or less (unofficially) settled itself in California, with a great deal of consumer scrutiny coming from drivers in the state.

Many of the lawsuits against Toyota have also come from California consumers. Perhaps fitting, then, is the choice by a national panel to appoint Santa Ana Judge James V. Selna to hear the federal cases piling up against Japan's beleaguered auto manufacturer.

A car accident in the Rancho San Diego area last night has left a 21-year-old woman and her young son in the hospital with serious injuries. The two were crossing Fury Lane at about 6:00 p.m. when they were struck by a young woman driving a Toyota Camry. Witnesses claim to have heard a loud crash and seen the woman fly over the car, which stopped immediately following the accident.

Police report that the car was traveling at about 25 mph and the young driver has claimed that the sun was in her eyes. The car accident supposedly occurred as she reached up to put down the car's visor. The California Highway Patrol spent more than an hour following the accident investigating the crash, but found nothing to indicate that drugs or alcohol were involved.

Storms blew into San Diego early this morning causing more than 100 car accidents before the clock had even struck 8:00 a.m. Among the morning crashes was at least one fatal accident involving an emergency medical technician working for San Diego Medical Services.

Esteban Bahena, an ambulance driver, was responding to a car accident on state Route 163 around 7:00 a.m. when he was struck by another driver. Police are still trying to piece together the exact circumstances of the accident, but believe that a second crash, nearby, may have caused a fourth car to strike Bahena as he set out emergency flares.

Both Bahena and the driver who struck him were taken to the hospital, where Bahena later passed away. The driver may face drunk driving charges, according to authorities, who are awaiting the results of a technician's blood test.

David "Puck" Rainey is used to being written about for his hijinks as a reality television star on MTV. However, he is being written up for something a bit different following a car accident that took place last Saturday east of San Diego.

The former bike messenger was driving through Descanso on Saturday night with his son, Bogart, when he swerved off of the road and rolled his Ford hatchback down an embankment. While Rainey was pinned in the car, his son managed to free himself and run to the highway, and flag down another driver.

Both father and son were then flown to University of California, San Diego Medical Center where Rainey was found to have serious injuries and was immediately scheduled for surgery. The son was released soon after being admitted, despite having suffered several internal injuries in the car crash.

Since 2004, all new car models have come equipped with enhanced airbags, meant to save more lives and deliver car accident victims more safely. These new airbags are controlled by computers, which adjust deployment based on:

• whether or not the driver is buckled in
• how much the driver weighs
• where the driver is located on the seat
• the car's speed at the time of impact

Yet, for all of these safety features, since smarter airbags have been installed, more drivers have died in car accidents.

More buckled drivers, that is. For those who decided not to buckle up, fatal accidents have decreased.

Do digital billboards distract drivers and cause car accidents? That is the question some cities are asking themselves and others have already answered.

In 16 cities across the country, including San Francisco, the answer has been a resounding yes. Six additional cities, including Los Angeles, have imposed morartoriums on digital billboards, and yet another three are considering such moratoriums.

For companies like Clear Channel and Lamar Advertising, this trend is bad news. Advertisers have staunchly maintained the stance that they operate well within the law and that such billboards do not distract drivers to a point that warrants a ban.

Cities in states like California, one of the first to regulate cellphone use in the car, have disagreed. San Francisco, for one, has banned new billboards since 2002 - digital or otherwise.

A car accident in the parking lot of a San Diego Costco has left one man in the hospital and one without a driver's license. Ray Ehlers, 86, had his license suspended by the state Department of Motor Vehicles after he mistook the accelerator for his brake and sped backwards, knocking down Miguel Rodriguez and then running him over.

Ehlers also struck Rodriguez's SUV, hurling the latter's two young sons from the vehicle and onto the pavement. Rodriguez's wife just barely escaped injury, as the SUV spun around her.

Authorities say that Ehlers was attempting to pull out of a disabled-parking stall when he accidently shifted into neutral, instead of reverse. He hit the gas harder because the car wouldn't move and, when the gear dropped into reverse, he sped backwards, striking Rodriguez.

The car accident left Rodriguez with a broken pelvis, punctured lung and internal bleeding. He is currently being treated at a hospital in La Jolla.

San Diego motor vehicle accident victims and others involved in situations requiring emergency assistance are waiting longer for help, according to a recent city report. Budget cuts introduced in February require up to eight, or 17 percent, of San Diego's firetrucks to be "idled" at any given time. The plan is projected to cut more than $11 million a year in overtime paid to San Diego firefighters. 

While this is certainly welcome to the city's fast-emptying pockets, it may not be such a good deal for those injured in car accidents, suffering from burn injuries or facing other catastrophic situations.

This is because, while cutting numbers from the budget, the plan adds numbers in another crucial area - the time it takes firefighters to respond to emergency situations. The report noted a significant increase in response time at seven of the eight fire stations where the idling plan was put into place.

Thus far, only the 2010 Prius model is covered under Toyota's anti-lock brake system recall. Up until this point, Toyota has mostly denied such problems in other vehicles. Still, it was a 2006 Prius that sped out of control on Monday in San Diego, leading to a terrifying 94 mph ride and police-assisted stop.

It all started when James Sikes tapped the gas pedal in his car to pull past another vehicle. The story, after this, is familiar. The car kept accelerating and pressing down on the brakes did nothing to stop it. Despite Sikes' frantic attempts, the car just would not slow down.

Luckily, this story didn't end with a tragic car accident. After a tense race down the San Diego highway, a police officer was able to pull alongside Sikes and guide him to a stop alongside the road.

While a happy ending for Sikes, this story is nothing but trouble for an already ailing Toyota.