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Morgan Hill: 1 Day, 4 Car Accidents, 3 Hospitalized

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Three people were hospitalized in four separate car accidents Wednesday in Morgan Hill.

• A truck driver who apparently was under the influence of an illegal substance drove his truck off of Highway 101. The truck overturned. The driver suffered a major head injury.

• A motorcyclist crashed into a car on another street and was thrown onto its windshield. He also suffered a major head injury as well as a broken leg. Again, police said driving under the influence was a factor.

• A fender bender on another part of Highway 101 caused minor damage but no injuries.

• Three Hondas were involved in a double rear-ender next to the scene of the first accident. A passenger in one of the vehicles was hospitalized.

The first accident occurred at 2 p.m. on Highway 101, according to a report in Morgan Hill Times.

California Highway Patrol officer Ken Foster said 37-year-old San Jose resident Roy Nutt was driving a six-wheeled box truck northbound on Highway 101 at the time of the crash. Foster said the truck went off of the road for unknown reasons just south of Coyote Creek Golf Drive. It overturned next to the highway. Nutt was partially ejected from the truck. He had a cut on his forehead.

James Herron, a witness who was driving a few car-lengths behind the box truck, said it did not appear that the accident was a result of any other motorist or obstruction in the road. Herron stopped to help the injured driver.

“He got a pretty big smack to the head,” said Herron, who is trained in first aid. He said Nutt, who was lying on the ground next to the truck, showed signs of major head trauma. Herron said Nutt was able to sit up at first, but over then became increasingly disoriented and ultimately went into “extreme shock.”

Herron and another witness bandaged Nutt’s lacerations and attempted to stabilized his head and neck while they waited for paramedics to arrive. Emergency crews were on the scene within five or six minutes of the accident, Herron said, but by then Nutt was unable to speak.

Nutt was airlifted via helicopter to the trauma unit at San Jose Regional Medical Center.

CHP officer Jaime Rios said Nutt was still in the hospital but was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and suspicion of driving under the influence DUI.

The accident led to a major traffic jam, as authorities closed the right northbound lane of the highwayfor four hours as they cleared the scene and investigated the crash.

Accident #2

The second accident occurred shortly after 3 p.m., also on northbound Highway 101, north of Cochrane. A 1998 Honda Accord driven by a 66-year-old San Jose man crashed into a 2009 Chrysler Grand Caravan minivan driven by a 22-year-old Monterey woman. Rios said no one was hurt in the “fender bender” and there was just minor damage to both vehicles.

Accident #3

The third crash was a motorcycle accident at around 4:30 p.m., Morgan Hill police Sgt. Bill Norman said. A motorcycle driven by 49-year-old Rodney Rogers of Morgan Hill turned north (right) from Crowner Avenue onto Monterey Road and collided with a southbound Acura Integra.

Rogers was thrown off of the motorcycle and onto the windshield of the Acura. Even though he was wearing a helmet, Rogers suffered a major head injury and a broken left leg, Norman said. He was rushed to San Jose Regional Medical Center to be treated.

The Acura driver was not hurt.

Norman said preliminary reports showed that alcohol was a factor in the accident. He did not say which driver was suspected of being under the influence. The accident is under investigation.

Accident #4

The fourth accident of the day occurred at around 5:30 on southbound Highway 101, near the same spot of the first accident — south of Coyote Creek Golf Drive.

Officer Rios said a 2008 Honda Accord driven by a 41-year-old Gilroy man rear-ended a 2007 Honda Odyssey minivan driven by a 68-year-old man from Hanford, in stop-and-go traffic. The 2008 Accord was then rear-ended by a 2005 Honda Accord driven by a 59-year-old Hollister man.

A 65-year-old female passenger in the 2005 Honda Accord was taken to Saint Louis Regional Hospital with complaints of chest, neck and shoulder pain. No one else was injured.

Rios said no drugs or alcohol were involved in the accident.

Morgan Hill Accident Lawyers

The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have successfully represented car accident victims and their families for 35 years. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.

Tags: Blackman Legal Group, car accident lawyer, car accidents, Highway 101, motorcycle accident
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Distracted Driving Leads to Fatal Motorcycle Crash in San Andreas

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Fatal motorcycle crash: A motorcyclist was killed Tuesday afternoon when an SUV driver looked down to check her speedometer and crashed into the bike on Highway 26 in San Andreas.

• A woman driving an SUV lost control of her vehicle after she looked down to check her speedometer.

• The SUV veered into oncoming traffic on a highway and crashed head-on into a motorcycle.

• The motorcyclist was killed. His passenger was severely injured. The SUV driver sustained only minor injuries.

The deadly accident occurred at about 2:15 p.m., according to a report in the Calavaras Enterprise.

The California Highway Patrol said 56-year-old Richard Arnold Crosse of Valley Springs was driving a 2001 Harley-Davidson eastbound on Highway 26 at the time of the accident. Crosse had a passenger, 83-year-old Adelle Crosse, on his motorcycle.

The CHP said 47-year-old Becky Lee Foster, also of Valley Springs, was driving a 2001 Jeep Cherokee westbound at the same time. Foster’s vehicle suddenly crossed over the double yellow line and into oncoming traffic just west of Hogan Dam Road. The SUV crashed head-on into Crosse’s motorcycle.

Richard Crosse was killed in the accident. His passenger, Adelle Crosse, suffered severe injuries. She was transported to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in south Sacramento to be treated, the CHP report said.

Foster sustained minor injuries. She told police officers she had looked down at her speedometer and when she looked back up, her SUV was drifting into the eastbound lane. She said she swerved back to the right to try to correct her vehicle but lost control. The vehicle then swerved again to the left, she said, and struck the motorcycle.

The accident is still under investigation.

Distracted Driving

All it takes is a split-second for a distraction to cause a fatal accident.

“In 2009, 5,474 people were killed on U.S. roadways and an estimated additional 448,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes that were reported to have involved distracted driving,” reports the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Here are more statistics from the NHTSA report:

Of those people killed in distracted-driving-related crashes, 995 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction (18% of fatalities in distraction-related crashes).
Of those injured in distracted-driving-related crashes, 24,000 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction (5% of injured people in distraction-related crashes).
Sixteen percent of fatal crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving.
Twenty percent of injury crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving.
The age group with the greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the under-20 age group – 16 percent of all drivers younger than 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted while driving.
Of those drivers involved in fatal crashes who were reportedly distracted, the 30- to 39-year-olds had the highest proportion of cell phone involvement.

Even the slightest distraction can prove fatal.

San Andreas Motorcycle Accident Lawyers

The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have successfully represented motorcycle accident victims and their families for 35 years. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.

Tags: Blackman Legal Group, California accident lawyer, Clifford Blackman, fatal accident, fatal motorcycle crash, motorcycle accident, motorcycle accident fatality, motorcycle crash
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8-Year-Old Boy Recovering After Marin County Motorcycle Accident

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

An 8-year-old boy who was critically injured in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday was airlifted from Marin County to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where his condition is now listed as stable.

• A 45-year-old man was teaching an 8-year-old boy how to ride a dirt bike in a recreation area parking lot next to a street.

• The boy lost control of the bike, plowed through the wooden rail at the entrance to the parking lot, was thrown of the motorcycle, and landed on the paved shoulder of the street. The bike kept moving into traffic and was hit by a pickup truck.

• The boy suffered life-threatening injuries. He was airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where he was in critical but stable condition.

The accident occurred at about 4:15 p.m. in Inverness, according to a report in the Marin Independent Journal.

California Highway Patrol officer Christopher Rardin said the boy, whose name was not released, was learning to ride a dirt bike under the supervision of a 45-year-old man who lives in Point Reyes Station. They were practicing near the parking lot of White House Pool, a 22-acre natural area on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Rardin said the boy lost control of the bike, plunged through a wooden rail fence at the entrance of the parking lot entrance and landed on the paved shoulder of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. The motorcycle continued into the westbound lane traffic lane, where it was struck by a Ford F-150 pickup truck driven by a 74-year-old Sebastopol man.

Early reports had said the boy was on the motorcycle when it was hit head-on by the truck, but Rardin said that is not what happened. He emphasized that the boy was already off of the motorcycle when it was hit.

The 8-year-old boy suffered critical injuries, including a fractured pelvis and abrasions on his side, according to a report in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. He was airlifted by a REACH helicopter to Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Rardin said his injuries were life-threatening. The boy was reported to be in critical but stable condition on Thursday morning, Rardin said.

Children in Motorcycle Accidents

Motorcycle crashes are a substantial public health problem for children and teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

An estimated 23,800 children and teens (age 18 and under) are treated for nonfatal off-road motorcycle injuries in U.S. hospital emergency rooms each year, the CDC said. The agency arrived at those numbers by analyzing data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP) for a five-year period ending in 2004.

That staggering number of injuries doesn’t even include three- or four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). The victim count included only injuries sustained on road bikes, dirt bikes (or trail bikes), mopeds, motor scooters, and minibikes.

The CDC stressed that there are probably far more injuries than these numbers state, because the data only accounts for people treated in hospital emergency rooms. It does not include victims who are treated in their doctor’s offices or other health care facilities. Nor does it include the considerable number of chldren who are treated at home or not at all.

Marin County Motorcycle Accident Lawyers

The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have successfully represented motorcycle accident victims and their families for 35 years. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.

Tags: Blackman Legal Group, California accident lawyer, california lawyer, Clifford Blackman, Injuries To Children, motorcycle accident, personal injury attorney
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Police Nab VW Beetle Driver in Sacramento Hit-and-Run Motorcycle Crash

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

UPDATED October 26: Police have arrested a 22-year-old woman for a hit-and-run accident that took the life of a 64-year-old motorcylist Monday night on Interstate 80 in Sacramento.

• Two separate hit-and-run accidents occurred on I-80 within two days. Police caught and arrested both drivers who fled the scenes.

• One of the crashes was fatal. A 64-year-old motorcyclist was killed.

• The other crash inflicted moderate injuries. The driver in that crash was from out-of-state and was carrying a concealed, loaded semi-automatic weapon.

The fatal motorcycle accident occurred at about 8:50 p.m., according to a report in the Sacramento Bee.

A witnesses told the California Highway Patrol that a white, late-model Volkswagen Beetle was weaving in traffic on Interstate 80 — also called the Capital Freeway — at the time of the crash. The Beetle pulled between the witness’s car and a motorcycle ridden by North Highlands resident Robert Wilson.

The Beetle crashed into the right side of Wilson’s bike, the witness said. Wilson was thrown off of his motorcycle. He landed in the center lane of the three-lane highway just north of El Camino Real, where he was struck by a Mitsubishi Eclipse, CHP officer Lizz Dutton said.

Witnesses said the driver of the Mitsubishi and the driver of the VW Beetle both pulled over and stopped, but the Beetle fled the scene before police arrived.

The CHP later found the Beetle and attempted to question Sequoia Jones about the accident, but she invoked her rights and refused to provide a statement. She was arrested on suspicion of felony hit and run, and vehicular manslaughter. Jones was booked into Sacramento County Jail, where bail was set at $500,000.

That arrest was one of two made in connection with separate hit-and-run accidents that occurred in Sacramento on Sunday and Monday.

Hit-and-Run Accident #2

On Sunday, police in Solano County arrested a Utah man in Davis for a felony hit-and-run accident that had occurred in Sacramento less than an hour earlier, according to a report in the Vacaville Reporter.

At about 1:15 p.m., CHP officer Bill Wesselman pulled over a gold Toyota Avalon as it exited westbound I-80 at Old Davis Road because the driver wasn’t wearing a seat belt. When Wesselman approached the car, he saw that it had extensive damage to the front, including the hubcap of another vehicle wedged into the front grill.

The driver — 32-year-old Ryan Durches of Orem, Utah — told Wesselman that the damage to his car was old and that he was passing through the area on his way to Santa Rosa. But it was obvious that the damage was fresh, CHP Sgt. Jason Hekker said. The hubcap that was stuck on the grill was from a Ford pickup truck.

Officers detained Durches while dispatchers checked for recent hit-and-run accidents in the area. They found a loaded Glock semi-automatic pistol tucked into his waistband.

Dispatchers reported that a felony hit-and-run accident involving a gold Toyota Avalon with Utah plates — and a driver matching Durches’ description – had taken place in Northern Sacramento at 12:40 p.m. on westbound I-80. The Toyota had crashed into a Ford pickup truck, which rolled over on near Madison Avenue.

The Toyota fled the scene at a speed of over 100 mph, witnesses said. The driver of the truck suffered moderate injuries and was taken to a hospital to be treated.

Durches was arrested on charges of felony hit-and-run, carrying a concealed loaded weapon, and possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle. He was booked into Solano County Jail and was later transferred to Sacramento.

Sacramento Hit-and-Run Accident Lawyers

The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have successfully represented hit-and-run accident victims and their families for 35 years. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.

Tags: auto accident, Blackman Legal Group, California accident lawyers, car accident lawyer, Clifford Blackman, fatal accident, fatal collision, fatal crash, fatal hit-and-run crash, highway crash, hit and run, motorcycle accident
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San Jose: Ladders Left on Freeway Cause Fatal Motorcycle Accident

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

A 28-year-old man was killed in a motorcycle accident Thursday night after he rode into some ladders that were strewn on a San Jose freeway and was thrown at a moving car.

• A motorcyclist was traveling at freeway speed at night when he suddenly came upon a set of fiberglass ladders that had been strewn onto the freeway and were blocking two lanes.

• The impact of the motorcycle hitting the ladders ejected the rider and threw him over two lanes, where he landed on the pavement in front of a moving car.

• The car could not avoid hitting the motorcyclist. He died at the scene.

The fatal freeway accident occurred shortly before 11 p.m., according to an article in the San Jose Mercury News.

The California Highway Patrol reported that 28-year-old Hoc Nguyen of San Jose was riding a 2009 Yamaha motorcycle in the fast lane of southbound U.S. 101 at the time of the accident. He was traveling at a speed of around 70 mph, the CHP said. It was dark.

Just south of Metcalf road, Nguyen came up on a set of orange fiberglass ladders that had been dropped onto the freeway and were partially blocking his lane and the lane to the right, the CHP reported. Nguyen did not have time or room to avoid riding over the strewn ladders.

The impact of the motorcycle hitting the ladders threw Nguyen off of the bike and hurled him two lanes to the right, where he landed on the pavement directly in front of an oncoming 2000 Honda, driven by a 63-year-old Gilroy man. The Honda struck the motorcyclist and then stayed at the scene, according to a report in the Gilroy Dispatch.

A witness stopped and dragged Nguyen over to the shoulder of the freeway. The witness administered CPR before San Jose police officers arrived and continued to try to revive the victim, the CHP reported. Unfortunately the motorcyclist did not survive his injuries. He was pronounced dead at 11:10 p.m., the CHP said.

The Honda driver was not injured. No arrests were made.

Officials closed southbound U.S. 101 traffic lanes for about an hour while they cleared the scene and collected evidence, including the orange ladders. CHP officer S. Parra urged anyone with information about the two orange fiberglass ladders and how or when they were left on the freeway to call the California HIghway Patrol at 408-848-2324.

Litter Causes Deadly Accidents

Litter is responsible for thousands of accidents on California roadways every year, according to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

In 2007 alone, Caltrans collected more than 140,000 cubic yards of trash — enough to fill a hole 1 mile long, 25-feet wide and nearly 30-feet deep.

The CHP has said that litter is not only a serious blight on the landscape, but a traffic safety issue and a threat to public safety. A state program called Don’t Trash California reported that Caltrans alone spends more than $41 million tax dollars every year — $55 million in 2007 alone — to collect and dispose of items carelessly dumped onto freeways and roads. The combined annual cost to all public agencies in California for litter prevention, clean up and disposal is $375.2 million.

Research indicates that litter comes from seven primary sources: pedestrians, drivers, household garbage cans, commercial dumpsters, construction sites, loading docks and uncovered trucks.

Litter not only makes freeways unsafe, but also travels into storm drains where it can soak into groundwater and can flow into canals and streams as well as lakes, rivers and the ocean.

San Jose Motorcycle Accident Lawyers

Tags: Blackman Legal Group, Clifford Blackman, fatal accident, fatal collision, fatal motorcycle accident, fatal motorcycle crash, freeway crash, highway crash, motorcycle accident, motorcycle accident fatality, motorcycle accident lawyers, motorcycle fatality
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