Personal Injury Law

Trucks Temporarily Banned On Portion of Angeles Crest Highway After Accident Kills Two

By Greg Owen

Director Will Kempton, of the California Department of Transportation, ordered on that vehicles with five axles will be barred from a section of Angeles Crest Highway for 90 days.

This three days after the second runaway truck in six months crashed into several cars and finally into the Flintridge Bookstore injuring twelve and killing Angelina Posca, 12, and her father, Angel Jorge Posca, 58, of Palmdale.

In September, a big-rig hauling tons of onions lost control and crashed into a parking lot in the same block as the bookstore, destroying seven cars and slightly injuring one person.

The 90-day ban will allow officials "to put signs in place and notify the trucking associations," Caltrans District Director Doug Failing told a news conference in La Canada Flintridge, at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains a dozen miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The alloted time will also give the Legislature the time to pass an emergency bill to permanently ban big-rigs on the highway.

Commercial trucks, those under 3 tons, have been allowed on Angeles Crest Highway, and Failing has said thousands of trucks used it daily without a problem. The route is posted with signs warning that there is a steep 7 percent grade on the straightaway section before La Canada Flintridge and advising longer trucks against using it. An existing escape lane that was built in the 1970s close to Foothill Boulevard had not been maintained. It was not posted and the truck involved in Wednesday's crash did not use it.

Full post as published by Glendale Personal Injury Lawyer on April 22, 2009 (boomark / email).