Northern California Injury Lawyer Blog

The erratic driving of a 52-year-old diabetic man that triggered a fatal car accident last summer may have been caused by an insulin overdose, according to a May 18 news report in the San Jose Mercury News .

Officials charged the Paso Robles man with two counts of vehicular manslaughter after a ten month investigation. The charge states that the man was intoxicated and driving under the influence of insulin, certainly an unusual situation. According to a police report cited by the Mercury News, there was no evidence of other drugs or alcohol in Mayfield’s body.

The driver worked for Pacific Gas and Electric and was actually driving a company truck when he lost control and veered off the road, striking three cars waiting at a traffic signal. The cars exploded, killing two 20-year-olds, Mary Bernstein and Robert Conway, and injuring seven others. The driver of the truck faces 16 years and eight months in prison if convicted.

According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, about 3,000 of the state’s 22 million drivers had their license restricted or revoked because of high insulin intake in 2004 and 2005.

If the case goes to trial in either civil or criminal court, it is difficult to ascertain how much fault a prospective jury would find on the part of the driver and his employer, PG&E, since insulin is a prescribed drug and diabetes is typically a self-managed condition. What is clear is the magnitude of the tragedy for the family of the victims who died and were injured in the accident.

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Posted In: Auto & Car Accidents

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A truck full of beer overturned early Friday, resulting in a prolonged backup on the westbound 10 Freeway in Ontario. The accident appears to have been caused by the truck’s driver, who fell asleep at the wheel, according to a news report posted on the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin’s Web site .

The truck careened off the right shoulder of the 10, overturning near Milliken Avenue in the early morning hours. The driver, whose name was not released, suffered minor injuries in the incident.

The cleanup of the beer, which took three tow trucks and a flatbed truck, lasted until around noon on Saturday, officials said.

Continue reading "Sleepy Driver Causes Truck Loaded with Beer to Overturn on Freeway" »

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We’re all guilty of it. Whether it’s making appointments, dialing into a conference call, or simply attempting to alleviate the monotony of a wearisome commute by catching up with friends, one cannot deny the convenience of being able to conduct one’s professional and personal life while driving thanks to the advent of the cell phone.

Carole Migden, a state senator from San Francisco, can attest to the fact that there is a price to pay for convenience. In an attempt to reach for her cell phone en route to a noon meeting in Marin County last Friday, the senator rear-ended another vehicle with her SUV at a red signal light intersection. While the senator escaped injury, the driver of the Honda sedan she hit was taken to a local hospital for minor injuries.

The National Highway Traffic Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute released a report last year, stating that about 80 percent of auto accidents and two-thirds of near crashes occur within three seconds of something distracting a driver, citing cell phone use as the most common distraction for drivers.

Continue reading "State Senator Involved in Car Crash: Cell Phone to Blame" »

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According to a report in the Ventura County Star, a Moorpark motorcyclist died last week in a manner all too familiar to Ventura County Sheriff’s Officials when he skidded off the road and was thrown off his bike.

Eduardo Altobelli rode his 2007 Kawasaki east on Walnut Creek Road near Arborhill Street in Moorpark on the afternoon of May 9 when he lost control on an S-shaped curve and went off the road, officials said. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital later that day after suffering multiple injuries.

In the past two years, 39 people have died in motorcycle crashes in Ventura County, according to records kept by the County Coroner’s Office. A majority of the motorcyclists who perished were men, most of them 35 years or older.

National statistics also seem to follow a similar trend in terms of gender and age. In 2002, the typical U.S. motorcycle owner was 38 years old according to a report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (www.iihs.org).

Motorcycle accidents occur for a variety of reasons, including riding at too great a speed. Lack of awareness by other drivers with respect to other motorcycles on the road is also a significant factor. Unfortunately, motorcycle accidents are much more likely to be fatal than auto accidents, because a rider has very little in terms of protection other than a helmet and leathers.

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South Orange County will get a $1.2 million study that will attempt to alleviate congestion on Interstate 5 from north of the El Toro Y to San Clemente. Officials are now focusing on this stretch of the freeway because it has proven to be extremely dangerous over the years as the site of numerous accidents, including a particularly tragic one earlier this month that killed three young children. The children died when the minivan they were riding in was rear-ended by a big-rig loaded with electronic equipment.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times , this will be the first major transportation study in 20 years in South Orange County, a surprising fact given the burgeoning population of Orange County. The constant stop-and-go traffic along that particular stretch of freeway increases the potential for rear-end accidents such as the one that occurred earlier this month.

The population in South Orange County has more than doubled in about 25 years. According to the Times, 205,000 people lived in the area in 1980. Now the area is populated by more than half a million.

This exponential growth is not unique to the area in question—it is found in many counties throughout California.

The number of accidents in South Orange County suggests that this transportation study is long overdue, but the situation is not unique to the area. Transportation planners have struggled for years to maintain the capacity of California’s freeways and interstates to handle the increased traffic caused by the massive influx of new residents to our state. Poor roadway design is also to blame in some instances.

For more information on our firm, please contact us at 800-840-2111.

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Street-racing caused a fiery multi-vehicle crash on the Long Beach Freeway May 5 that burned a Corvette to its frame and left three people in the hospital, according to a City News Service article posted on the Daily Breeze newspaper’s Web site.

The accident was reported at 10:06 p.m. on May 5 on the southbound Long Beach (710) Freeway near the Los Angeles River, according to the California Highway Patrol. The Corvette was allegedly racing a second car when one driver lost control, crashed into the other vehicle, and then crashed into a third car which was apparently not part of the race, a witness told the reporter. A passenger in a Mustang and a driver in a compact car were also taken to hospitals, a witness said.

Witnesses said the Corvette burst into flames rapidly after the crash.

Continue reading "Long Beach Injury Crash Apparently Caused by Street Racing" »

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It's been a few weeks, but it's still easy to goggle at these images of what happened when an oil tanker loaded with 8,600 gallons of gasoline ran into a support pillar near the San Francisco Bay Bridge and caught fire. The heat from the fire literally melted the freeway. Fortunately, the accident took place very early in the morning and nobody was seriously hurt, though of course traffic was seriously disrupted. However, we can only imagine what could have happened if the truck accident had taken place just a few hours later, during morning rush hour.

News reports say the state of California is pushing very hard to get this bridge rebuilt for the thousands of commuters who use it each day. A rush job like that won’t be cheap. Depending on the results of the accident investigation, the liability for the repairs could fall on the driver, the trucking company that employed him, or both. News reports tell us that the driver, James Mosqueda, has a history of using drugs but had been clean for years before the accident and was not under the influence of anything at the time -- though he may have been driving too fast. However, the trucking company, Sabek Transportation Inc., has a more relevant history: it has failed six out of nine safety inspections of its trucks in the past year alone! The problems turned up by the inspections included bad tire tread and brake pads, both very common safety issues for large trucks. These issues may not have contributed to the accident, but could be damaging to the defense if the State decides to pursue a lawsuit against Mosqueda or Sabek. And it looks like that's a distinct possibility. Sabek may be liable for the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to repair the damage to the MacArthur Maze, state officials said Monday.

CalTrans Director Will Kempton said the agency will pursue damages if the CHP investigation determines that the driver or company were negligent in the crash.

CHP spokesman Officer Trent Cross said, "Ultimately someone is going to pay for this. Our investigation will tell you what happened, but we leave it to CalTrans and the lawyers to determine how any liability questions are settled." That's a big burden for a small company. Let's hope other trucking companies take it as evidence that safety matters -- financially as well as in terms of human lives.

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At the risk of escalating some drivers’ highway phobias, it is fair to say that California roads are booby-trapped with all imaginable kinds of hazards, including the kitchen sink. Radio traffic advisors recently warned commuters to cautiously navigate a section of the San Mateo Bridge where a large plastic wash basin had fallen from someone’s vehicle and was blocking two lanes of traffic. Had someone stopped to pick that sink up, and were so inclined, in a matter of weeks he or she could virtually furnish a home with the smorgasbord of mattresses, sofas, and TV’s littering our highways.

To the Golden State’s residents, American Automobile Association’s 2004 report comes as no surprise: debris falling from vehicles causes more than 25,000 motor vehicle accidents in North America each year, with California leading the country in road-side litter. In fact, in recent years, California has averaged nearly 80 fatalities a year resulting from accidents caused by stray objects in the road.

What you can do: if you are out there on the highways, please drive defensively. Stay aware of your surroundings and be particularly cautious if you notice an overloaded or unsecured vehicle. If you’re carrying a load, only haul what you can handle and secure it well. Lost cargo, even when humorous, like today’s sink or the ostrich that got away on the Golden Gate Bridge a few years ago, can be extremely dangerous to other drivers.

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