San Diego Car Accident Lawyer Blog

IA fatal San Diego car wreck on May 26, 2009, involved two motor vehicles, one of which illegally ran the red light of an intersection. It was just announced on Wednesday afternoon that the driver of the car that ran the light may now be charged with misdemeanor manslaughter.

The California Highway Patrol reported that a 47-year-old man from Fallbrook had been driving a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck on Mission Road eastbound when he ran the red light at the intersection and slammed into a sedan turning left onto Mission Road from I-15. CHP Sgt. Lewis Hall says that it seems as though the driver of the pickup truck didn't notice the red light because of other distractions.

The driver of the sedan was 84-year-old Evelyn Crenshaw of Fallbrook, who was both died at scene of the car accident. The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the injuries of Crenshaw. The driver of the Chevy Silverado will now most likely face misdemeanor manslaughter charges. You can read more about this San Diego car accident in this SanDiego6.com story.

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A San Diego California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer was struck by a truck on Tuesday after it veered into a center median on the Interstate 15 in the San Diego area of Mission Valley while the CHP officer was assisting with another accident. Both parties were injured.

The motorist was identified as Brian Joseph Andrews, 43, who had been driving a 2000 Toyota Tacoma and had just got on the freeway from the eastbound Interstate 8, and swerved across southbound lanes and struck the center divider. The truck then sideswiped a CHP cruiser before he hit the officer, who had been next to the freeway's barrier near his BMW patrol motorcycle. This happened shortly before 9 a.m. on Tuesday. The CHP officer was then reported to have tumbled with or was caught under the Toyota and was dragging some distance to the south in this San Diego area injury, according to CHP public affairs Officer Brad Baehr. The pickup truck eventually stopped, as the rest of the freeway came to a halt following the series of events, and four men jumped out of their vehicles to free the California authority.

The CHP veteran's identity had not yet been released pending notification of his family, but he had been transferred to Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest for treatment of his cuts, scrapes, and a bruised right lung. The San Diego resident Andrews was taken to the same medical center. He reported that he was stricken with chest pains just prior to the accident. You can read more about this San Diego motorcycle accident in this SanDiego6.com story.

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A pickup truck traveling on Interstate 5 early Friday morning went off the roadway near Camp Pendleton and crashed onto Las Pulgas Road just below. Interstate 5 is one of the longest continuing freeways within the contiguous United States, stretching from the southernmost California border with Mexico, through the western states of Oregon and Washington, and into neighboring Canadian territory. The 1,381-mile stretch of this roadway sees hundreds of deadly car accidents a year, and this particular tragedy is just one of dozens to have occurred within the San Diego area in 2009.

The accident was reported at 4:52 a.m. on Friday, according to the California Highway Patrol. The truck landed just west of southbound I-5, and was the only vehicle involved in the wreck, although there was one death as a result of the wreckage on Las Pulgas Road. The main gate at Camp Pendleton was recommended for use while the police investigated the wreck. Many details are still not known and are still being investigated. You can read more about this fatal San Diego car accident in this SanDiego6.com story.

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On Thursday, May 21, a 37-year-old man was out riding his Yamaha motorcycle in San Pasqual Valley, only to end up hospitalized.

San Diego Police Sgt. Alan Hayward reported that the as-of-yet unidentified motorcyclist lost control of a curve while riding westbound on San Pasqual Valley Road around 11:15 p.m. and went off the roadway in this San Diego area motorcycle injury. After falling off of the roadway, he struck a rock and was separated from him motorcycle. He had been speeding.

You can read more about this San Diego County motorcycle accident in this 10news.com story.

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San Diego County is one of over 90 counties in the state that are preparing to work aggressively in the next two weeks to enforce seat belt and safety restraint laws for both car drivers and passengers. While the risk of death apparently isn't enough motivation for car drivers to buckle up, it might help to know that you will now be specifically targeted. Don't forget that the fines for not wearing a seat belt (and wearing it correctly), were raised Jan. 1, along with the laws that now make texting while driving illegal in California.

The fines for a first-time offense is up to $132, as opposed to $91 from last year, and for children under 16 who are fastened, first time offenses are $435 now, while they were $401 last year.

While all of San Diego County is looking to increase coverage of the seat belt laws, police in Chula Vista and National City are planning with the California Highway Patrol to enforce California's "occupant protection laws" between now and May 31. You can read more about this effort by San Diego police to crack down on car seat belt violations in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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Kelly Reister was a 51-year-old novice motorcycle rider from Mission Viejo who was out taking a spin on her Harley Davidson street bike on May 17, 2009. Reister, who friends say had been riding motorcycles of this kind for only about a year or two, lost control of her vehicle on a long curved stretch of Ortega Highway despite only traveling at 35 mph.

When she lost control she struck a rock formation and was thrown from the Harley. After being flown to Mission Hospital, she was pronounced dead at about 8 p.m. Kelly was remembered for her outgoing and friendly personality in her job position as a Sales and Marketing Director at the Shur-lock Company, as well as having been very close to her father, who was out of town at the time of the accident. You can read more about this Temecula motorcycle accident in this missionviejodispatch.com story.

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Two separate incidents on Sunday caused the loss of power to San Diego Gas & Electric customers on May 17, 2009, one of which was a reckless San Diego car accident.

Around 8 a.m., an unidentified car jumped a curb, smashed an electrical box, sheared off a fire hydrant, and flooded a business, according to a National City police dispatcher. It was also disclosed that someone had to be driven to the hospital after the crash in the 900 block east of Plaza Boulevard in a private vehicle. The crash caused extensive flooding at a shoe store adjacent to the crash scene, and SDG&E customers lost power roughly between Highland and Palm Avenues, and 9th and 15th Streets.

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The friends and family of those closest to a Santee woman recently started a memorial site online to preserve her memory and spirit despite her death.

The 25-year-old Santee woman, Melissa Ann Porter, was the victim of a deadly car wreck last Friday. Porter was exiting Interstate 805 at Clairemont Mesa Boulevard when the Chevrolet pickup she was driving crossed the lanes of traffic. Sergeant Ramona Hastings reported that her truck collided with a parked tractor trailer, and both caught on fire from the auto accident. Despite the help of a passer-by who pulled Porter from the truck, Porter still died at the scene.

Continue reading " Victims of Deadly San Diego Car Crash Immortalized " »

Downtown San Diego eyewitnesses spotted a DUI arrest on India and Hawthorne streets on Friday evening around 10:45 p.m. in the Little Italy district. The driver, identified only as a man was driving a champagne colored Honda Accord down India Street the wrong way. The car was pulled over by San Diego Harbor Police patrol and the driver was arrested after failing to pass a sobriety test. It is unknown what the driver's blood alcohol content was at the time of his arrest.

No other cars seemed to be involved and it did not look as though there were any injuries suffered.

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A fatal San Diego County car accident on May 11 left 85-year-old Robert Francis Brunswick dead. A California Highway Patrol spokesman relayed the events that happened around 11:15 a.m. on Monday morning. Brunswick was exiting a business on Alpine Boulevard by Bay Meadows Drive in his Saturn sedan when a Ford Mustang traveling east collided with him on the driver's side.

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Authorities report that Brunswick passed away from this Alpine, CA auto accident while waiting for a helicopter to arrive on scene to airlift him to a hospital after the car crash. He had not been wearing a seat belt at the time of the incident. The 40-year-old driver of the Ford Mustang reported suffering from back pain and was transported to a hospital.

The CHP officer notes that there was no evidence that either driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and the Mustang's speed was recorded as being under the speed limit of that particular road. Brunswick's name had not been immediately released, but was reported by the Medical Examiner's Office on Tuesday. You can read more about this San Diego County auto accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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Conditions on the road and overall weather is something drivers have very little control over that directly contribute to their likelihood of being involved in a fatal San Diego County auto accident. The State of California has the unique and coveted quality of allowing drivers to reach the mountains from the beach in a matter of mere hours, but that does not mean that everyone has the same familiarities with different weather conditions in our varied locales.

Fog is very common in many parts of California, and the coastal area account for a huge percentage of this. For cities like Oceanside, Chula Vista, and San Diego, foggy conditions are most prevalent during the spring and summer months, which is now. Though commonly referred to as "June Gloom", the fog really tends to roll in as early as March or April and carries the blame for many a serious San Diego car wreck.

Continue reading " Foggy Weather Conditions Raise Number of San Diego Car Accidents " »

Two San Diego County border patrol agents became suspicious of a silver 1995 Ford Taurus on May 13, 2009, around 9:30 a.m., when they saw the vehicle take northbound Sunrise Highway, a route traversed often by migrant smugglers trying to evade the Border Patrol checkpoint on westbound Interstate 8 near the junction with the highway.

Border Patrol agent Jerry Conlin reports that they tried to pull the sedan over near Pine Valley but the driver sped off instead. They pursued the Taurus for only a short while before they deemed the speed too fast for road conditions, though the exact speed of the vehicle was not known. The agents finally found the Taurus about four miles north of where it was originally spotted, and saw that the car had crashed into a tree. Two men inside were seriously injured and required helicopter evacuations to San Diego hospitals, and a third was taken to a hospital via ambulance. There has been no word on their conditions nor their immigration status. You can read more about this San Diego car accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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State Route 76 on Rincon Indian Reservation Road in North San Diego County was closed in both directions for nearly five hours on Monday following a head-on car crash on Valley Center Road that injured two people, one of which was a sheriff's deputy working on call.

Deputy Anthony Radicia was traveling north along Valley Center Road just by Gulch Road at about 8:50 a.m. in a clearly identifiable sheriff's Ford Expedition when another vehicle illegally crossed double yellow lines in an attempt to turn into a driveway and collided head-on with the SUV, according to sheriff's Lt. Julie Sutton. The other driver was a woman from Los Angeles but had not been identified further. The woman claimed that she was unfamiliar with the area and had been visiting the Harrah's Rincon casino nearby, according to Sutton. You can read more about this San Diego auto accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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Brian Simnjanovski was identified as the 27-year-old Escondido native who died after his car crashed into a tree. The Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the details of the driver's identity yesterday morning.

Simnjanovski had reportedly been driving an Audi sedan on Valley Center Road south on Sunday just before 10 p.m. and failed to negotiate a curve at Vesper Road before running off the road. Simnjanovski was pronounced dead at the scene of the fatal San Diego auto wreck. Luckily no other vehicles were involved in the car crash. You can read more about this Valley Center car accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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Many details were left unknown following a Friday morning accident that left a woman dead. According to San Diego police, a woman is dead after she crashed her car into the back of a semi-truck.

The fatal San Diego car accident transpired when the woman was getting off of Interstate 805 at Clairemont Mesa Boulevard on Friday morning around 5:00 a.m., and her vehicle veered and collided with the semi-truck, and her car burst into flames. The 805 offramp was closed for hours following the car wreck. While investigators were still deciphering the details of the accident on Friday afternoon, the name and causes would be released as they became known.

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Valeria Atondo, a Chula Vista resident just 17 years old, died Thursday afternoon as a result of a three-vehicle crash on northbound Interstate 5 just south of Washington Street in the San Diego car wreck. According to authorities, Atondo was ejected from a pickup and was identified by the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Officer.

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The three-car pile up reportedly happened around 2:20 p.m. on Thursday when the driver of a Toyota Corolla lost control and hit the median wall, according in California Highway Patrol Officer Brad Beahr. It is unknown why the driver lost control. The Toyota bounced off the wall and struck a Ford Mustang, which made the Toyota spin, and was then hit by a Ford Ranger. The Ranger's passenger door opened and Atono was ejected from the right-front passenger seat, creating a fatal San Diego car accident. The other passenger in the Ranger left with an injured wrist from the San Diego car crash, but no one in the other vehicles was hurt. You can read more about this San Diego auto accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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The San Diego trial of Alan Lester Mabrey, the man accused of driving a truck under the influence of alcohol and killing Pacific Beach pedestrian Emily Dowdy, 24, has been set for June 25. Mabrey, who had seven prior DUI convictions while living in Texas and Colorado, now faces a felony charge second degree murder, as well as several other charges, arising from the fatal February 7 San Diego DUI and pedestrian accident.

The Jurewitz Law Group has written about this Pacific Beach DUI car accident and Pacific Beach pedestrian accident twice before.

Mabrey had allegedly been drinking at a nearby bar when he got into the driver's seat of his friend's truck and drove along Reed Avenue before hitting Dowdy as he was turning left onto Mission Boulevard. Dowdy suffered massive head injuries and was declared brain dead 24 hours later.

If Mabrey is convicted of the murder charges, he could be sentenced to 15 years to life behind bars. A guilty verdict for the remaining charges could add on an additional seven or nine years. Some of the other charges include gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, hit-and-run causing death, DUI causing death, and driving under the influence with a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent or higher.

The legal limit is .08 percent, and Mabrey's blood alcohol content was measured at .22 percent.

Continue reading " Trial Set for Fatal Pacific Beach DUI Car Accident " »

The Riverside County manslaughter trial of Mark Davis Julian, 31, of Homeland, has finally been set. The charges arise from a fatal 2008 Riverside County car crash that killed a Perris woman Terri Keller-Houle, 36, and seriously injured her two daughters. Julian had reportedly been driving under the influence of alcohol when he caused the fatal Murrieta auto accident.

One of the Keller-Houle's daughters, Amanda Keller, 10, remained in a vegetative state after the auto accident until she died in January. A preliminary hearing lasting by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Timothy Freer, resulted in Freer ordering that Julian be jailed in lieu of a $100,000 bail, and Julian was immediately taken into custody.

The fatal DUI car accident leaves Julian charged with two counts of DUI gross vehicular manslaughter and two counts of DUI with injury, with allegations of inflicting great bodily injury, great bodily injury causing paralysis or a comatose condition and having multiple victims. He now faces a maximum of 18 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

According to accident reports, Keller-Houle had the green light as she drove her car through the intersection of Briggs Road and State Route 74 in Murrieta around 5 p.m. As she passed through the intersection, her red Ford Excursion was broadsided by a large, lifted work truck traveling at full speed through the red light, causing the SUV to spin 180 degrees counter clockwise. Keller-Houle was killed instantly and daughter, Amanda, was almost ejected despite wearing a seat belt.

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Interstate 5 in Oceanside was the scene of a fatal Oceanside car wreck that claimed the life of a 49 year-old Rosemead man on Tuesday, whose name has not yet been released. The Rosemead native was reportedly driving a box truck behind a big rig that had begun slowing down for the truck scales on northbound I-5 when he drove into the back of it. California Highway Patrol Acting Sgt. Brad Denham says that the accident occurred after the big rig stopped in traffic in the far right-hand lane at about 11:10 a.m.

While it is unknown at what speed the driver of the box truck had been driving at, investigators say that there were no signs of the box-truck driver having applied brakes before the impact took place. The Oceanside trucking accident caused several lanes to close for a few hours along the very popular and busy Interstate 5 in Oceanside which weaves on and off of the Pacific Coast. The driver of the box truck was pronounced dead before he could be taken to a hospital. You can read more about this fatal Oceanside trucking accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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The long standing investigation of the March 29th San Diego County car accident which took the life of 25 year-old mother Alexandria Drake was completed recently by the California Highway Patrol and submitted for review to the District Attorney's Office. While the CHP have not released specifics on their recommendations for charges against Melvin Pearls, 48, of Ranchita, they will be made available at a later date, according to Deputy District Attorney Doug Rose.

The highly publicized San Diego County fatal car crash ensued when Pearles was driving along the highly problematic State Route 67 near Ramona. Pearles was driving about 80 mph in a Jaguar when he lost control and crossed into oncoming traffic and reportedly collided with several vehicles, one driven by Alexandria Drake of Chula Vista. The collision spun Drake's car off the road and into a tree, resulting in her death.

Pearles claims that the cause of his losing control was a white BMW just east of Archie Moore Road where the highway's two lanes merge. It had been originally thought that the drivers of the Jaguar and BMW had been street racing, although not confirmed, and the white BMW had disappeared and never stopped after the car collisions.

Continue reading " Report of Fatal Ramona Car Accident Completed Regarding Death of Alexandria Drake " »

Five passengers, including two children and three adults, were injured in a head-on car crash on Harmony Grove Road near Escondido. The Escondido car crash happened on the 8000 block of Harmony Grove Road where, according to the California Highway Patrol, a car turned a corner too quickly and hit another car in oncoming traffic.

The two children were sent via helicopter to Rady Children's Hospital, while the adults were treated at Palomar Hospital. As of Saturday night, their conditions were still unknown. You can read more about this San Diego auto accident in this CBS8.com story.

If you or someone you know has been injured in a North County San Diego car accident, please contact San Diego car crash lawyer Ross Jurewitz and the San Diego personal injury attorneys at the Jurewitz Law Group at (619) 233- 5020. You may also contact these San Diego car wreck lawyers online here.

On Wednesday, April 15, an 86-year-old female driver crashed her car through a wall and into a Tierrasanta dental office. We posted a story about this San Diego car crash a couple of days later reporting that a 59-year-old man had been pinned up against the wall near the reception desk. According to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office this Tierrasanta dental office patient passed away last Wednesday.

The victim, who had lived in Spring Valley with a roommate, had been admitted to Sharp Memorial Hospital after suffering multiple fractures and organ damage. Two days after being admitted he went to cardiopulmonary arrest. He was resuscitated but remained unresponsive and was put on a ventilator. He died a week and a half after the crash. You can read more about this San Diego car accident in this SignOnSanDiego.com story.

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State Route 67 runs off of Interstate 8 in El Cajon to Lakeside, known as the San Vicente Freeway before turning into Main Street in Ramona, California. A variety of terrain and changes in the road's usage have caused several drivers to overestimate or misjudge their driving. The roughly 25 mile stretch of highway in San Diego County has seen dozens of fatal auto accidents in the past decade, and only seem to continue.

The death of Chula Vista resident Alexandria Drake, 25, and her infant son that took place about a month ago along the highway due to what was thought to be street racing and turned into a hit-and-run fatal auto accident in San Diego County by one of the cars is under investigation, but it has opened awareness to the dangers of the route at a few select areas of State Route 67.

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