User:Eegmelich/sandbox/Angeles Crest Highway Truck Accidents

Angeles Crest Highway Truck Accidents

The Angeles Crest Highway is a two-lane highway in Los Angeles, California, providing a path for vehicles to travel through the San Gabriel Mountains, the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. The highway spans for 66 miles with its western point, closest to Los Angeles proper, beginning and ending at the Foothill Boulevard intersection in La Canada Flintridge. The highway, at times, is especially treacherous with sharp winding turns and steep hill grade changes. These characteristics are known for their contribution to a high number of automobile and motorcycle accidents.

Accidents

Two major truck accidents of similar incident occurred in 2008 and 2009 at the Foothill Boulevard intersection in La Canada, California. The deaths of those involved spurred California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to sign into law a bill banning heavy trucks with three or more axels from accessing the Angeles Crest Highway.

September 2008 Accident

In the early morning of September 5, 2008, an 18-wheeler big rig carrying 78,000 pounds of onions lost control of its brakes while driving downhill on the Angeles Crest Highway. To avoid a collision with the Hill Street Café at the intersection with Foothill Boulevard, the rig turned towards a small alleyway, sideswiped the Café, crashed into a guardrail, a waste container, a tree, and several vehicles before coming to a stop in the parking area. James Bines, the 43-year-old driver, and his passenger, Willy Robinson, had been hauling a full load of onions through the mountains in the vehicle. According to the Highway Patrol, a load of that size is illegal to be hauled on Angeles Crest highways, but the lack of visible signs available to the driver is notable. No fatalities, only one minor injury reported—a maintenance worker who was hit by a brick as the rig crashed into the parking lot while he had been cleaning up garbage.

April 2009 Accident

On April 1, 2009, a scene of similar incident occurred at roughly the same location. A double-decker car carrier barreled into busy cross traffic of the Foothill Boulevard intersection and through a bookstore and finally stopping in the back of a nail salon. The vehicle hauling six cars southbound on the Angeles Crest Highway had lost its brakes, and avoided three runaway vehicle escape medians in the center islands, causing a multiple vehicle accident. The incident resulted in 12 injuries and 2 fatalities, those of a father and his 12-year-old daughter from Palmdale. Angel Jorge Posca, 58, and his daughter Angelina had just exited the eastbound Foothill Freeway at the Angeles Crest Highway in their red Ford Escort and were starting to turn north on the highway to return to Palmdale when the semi-truck struck their vehicle. The driver, Marcos Costa, 46, survived with minor injuries and is serving prison time over the involuntary manslaughter of Angel and Angelina Posca.

Aftermath

On August 6, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning the access of heavy big rigs, those with three or more axels, from accessing and driving on the Angeles Crest Highway.

On July 19, 2011, driver Marcos Costa was convicted of involuntary manslaughter relating to the 2009 accident in which he piloted an out-of-control car-carrier down Angeles Crest Highway into the Flintridge Blvd. Intersection, causing a major traffic accident that resulted in the deaths of Angel Posca and his daughter.