According to the data compiled by the City of Los Angeles based upon Traffic Collision Reports made in relation to auto accidents city-wide from 2010 to the present, the following are the most dangerous roads in L.A.
The recent accident and subsequent death of actress Anne Heche captivated the attention of many people in California and throughout the U.S. The horrific accident and Heche’s conduct leading up to the crash also raise questions of liability and how the victims might pursue claims to recover damages for their losses. Los Angeles personal injury attorney Steven M. Sweat analyzes the crash from a legal perspective below.
On Aug. 5, 2022, TMZ reported that Anne Heche had been involved in a hit-and-run crash before she fled and crashed into an occupied home nearby. The second collision ignited a fire that engulfed both her vehicle and the home she crashed into, and the fire destroyed the home. The resident was seated inside of her house at the time of the crash, and Heche’s vehicle stopped just a few feet from her. Thankfully, the resident escaped without injuries. Heche was taken to the hospital with burns and other injuries, and she slipped into a coma and subsequently died a few days later.
A horrific car crash in Los Angeles claimed the lives of five people and one unborn baby. The multi-vehicle wreck happened on Aug. 4 when a woman sped through a red light while traveling at an estimated 90 miles per hour at 1:30 pm. The tragic collision illustrates the importance of following California’s traffic laws to prevent similar collisions from occurring.
A 37-year-old traveling nurse, Nicole Linton had worked in multiple states, including Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas before taking a position in California at the Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center. She had originally graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor’s degree in marketing before changing career paths and becoming a nurse. Linton was licensed as a nurse in California in 2021 and had been working in the state for a year at the time of her collision.
In 2015, the City of Los Angeles adopted Vision Zero following its implementation in multiple European cities. The city’s Vision Zero plan aimed to decrease traffic fatalities each year with the goal of eliminating all of them by 2025. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced an executive directive through which he committed the city to Vision Zero with the intention of reducing traffic death to zero by 2025 through a combination of infrastructure improvements and new policies. While the initiative initially showed promise with the city’s modifications of 18 traffic corridors to include protected left-turn signals and extended curbs, the traffic fatality statistics demonstrate that the impact of Vision Zero has not been as intended. Instead, traffic fatalities have increased since 2015 to reach a 20-year high of 289 people in Los Angeles in 2021. Similarly, other U.S. cities that have adopted Vision Zero programs have also seen increases in traffic fatalities, including New York City, Portland, Oregon, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
By contrast, European cities with similar programs have demonstrated a steady decline in traffic fatalities. For example, Helsinki, Finland, a city with a population the size of Las Vegas, Nevada, only had three traffic fatalities. By contrast, Las Vegas had 304 traffic fatalities that year despite having a Vision Zero program.
There are several reasons why Vision Zero has not worked as intended in the U.S. while it has been effective in Europe.
Employers are generally not liable for the negligent actions of their employees when the employees are traveling to or from work while off the clock. However, if an employer creates a risk of injury during the employee’s commute, and the employee then causes an accident as a result of that created risk, the employer might be liable. In Feltham v. Universal Protection Service, LP, Cal. Ct. App. Case No. A161190, the California Court of Appeal considered whether the trial court’s ruling that the special risk exception had not been met was correct.
Clanisha Villegas worked for Universal Protection Service, LP (DBA Allied Universal Corporation) from Feb. 2015 to May 2016 before leaving to have a baby. Universal provided security guard services to multiple medical facilities through the University of California, San Francisco. Villegas reapplied for a security guard position in 2017 and asked to work the overnight shift. During her interview, she informed the company that she had an eight-month-old baby and did not have daytime childcare. The interviewer did not ask Villegas about her daytime activities or when she was able to sleep.
Autonomous driving technology has been touted by manufacturers as a potential solution to the problems of serious motor vehicle collisions. As several manufacturers continue to test systems on the nation’s roadways, the likelihood of autonomous vehicles becoming available in the market has increased. However, this type of technology cannot prevent all accidents, and drivers who misuse semi-autonomous technology in their vehicles can cause serious accidents in which people can be injured or killed. A pending criminal case in California demonstrates the potential liability of motorists who are driving semi-autonomous vehicles and cause serious injury or fatality collisions. It also raises potential issues involving product liability.
In 2019, Kevin George Aziz Riad, a 27-year-old man, was driving his Tesla on Autopilot mode. Tesla Autopilot is a driver-assist technology that is considered to be level 2 automation technology on the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) six levels of autonomous technology. While Tesla Autopilot is not fully autonomous, it includes features that include automatic lane changes, traffic-aware cruise control, lane centering, self-parking, semi-autonomous navigation, and the ability for a driver to summon the vehicle from a parking spot or garage. However, when a driver has Tesla Autopilot engaged, he or she must constantly supervise the vehicle and be prepared to take over at any time. Tesla recommends drivers keep at least one hand on the wheel while they are using Tesla Autopilot.
With more than 39.5 million people calling California their home combined with tourists and other visitors, California’s freeways, interstates, and highways are perennially congested with traffic. California’s transportation infrastructure ranges from wide city avenues, numerous interstates and freeways, winding beach roads, and major highways, allowing plenty of routes for people to choose to travel to their destinations.
Motor vehicle accidents can happen anywhere. However, there are some interstates and other roads that are more dangerous than others. Multiple factors increase the risks of accidents on certain roads, including traffic congestion, speed limits, narrow lanes, poor visibility, difficulty navigating, and others. In 2020, 3,723 people were killed in traffic collisions in California, which was a sharp increase over the 3,540 traffic deaths that occurred in the state in 2019.
The population density of California makes it unsurprising that the state is known for traffic problems. Unfortunately, many motor vehicle collisions in the state result in serious injuries or fatalities each year. A recent study also found that California is home to three of the most dangerous freeways in the nation. Understanding which roads are the most dangerous might help people to exercise added caution when they drive on them and potentially avoid being involved in collisions. Here are some of the most dangerous freeways and roads in California.
Speeding places everyone on the road at risk here in Los Angeles. According to data from the National Safety Council, speeding was responsible for 26% of all traffic fatalities that happened in 2019. The NSC also reported that speeding as a contributing factor for fatal accidents decreased with age, and the highest number of speeding-related fatal accidents occurred with young male drivers between the ages of 16 and 24. A recent case that happened in Los Angeles demonstrates the dangers of speeding and the impact this negligent driving behavior can have on others.A driver who was 17 at the time the crash occurred recently was sentenced to spend between seven and nine months in a juvenile facility after he caused a fatal accident while speeding. On Feb. 17, 2021, the teenager was driving his father’s Lamborghini with his girlfriend at the time. He started racing and was traveling at more than 100 miles per hour when he crashed into a vehicle that was being driven by a 32-year-old woman near the intersection of Overland Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. The collision caused the woman’s car to nearly be split in half, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
While gun-related deaths are a serious problem in California and the rest of the U.S., traffic accidents cause just as many deaths as guns each year. When you get behind the wheel of your vehicle, it is among the most dangerous things you might do on any given day. Car accidents kill tens of thousands of people in the U.S. each year and cause millions of others to suffer serious injuries.
Even though people have clocked fewer miles during the pandemic, traffic fatalities have increased in the last 18 months. According to the National Safety Council, an estimated 42,060 people were killed during 2020, which was a 24% increase from traffic fatalities in 2019. By comparison, USA Today reports that 41,000 Americans were killed in gun-related incidents in 2020, meaning that more people were killed in traffic accidents than in gun incidents.
Even though fewer people were on the roads in 2020 because of the pandemic, traffic deaths still surged. This surge in traffic fatalities has continued during 2021 even though more people are back on the roads. Policy changes should be implemented to reduce traffic deaths.
As a nationally recognized personal injury attorney and car accident lawyer in practice for over 25 years, I’ve successfully resolved literally thousands of auto accident claims. In that time period, I’ve found that for all the billions of dollars the auto insurance industry spends every year trying to convince people that they can “save money” by switching to this carrier or the other, they misrepresent the real truth behind auto insurance. I wanted to explore some of these myths in this blog post.
This one, I think is a great example of fundamental misrepresentations in auto insurance ads. Lately the slogan and concept has been used most by Liberty Mutual. We see the usual antics of a guy with a pet Emu running around telling people that their insurance company is better because they show you how to “only pay for what you need”. What does this mean? It implies that there are a lot of insurance coverages that you can do without and shouldn’t pay for. Nothing could be further from the truth if you actually have to file a claim for property damage or bodily injury. In addition, almost every insurance company touts their ability to save you “HUNDREDS” of dollars a year. This is a more subtle misrepresentation. The actual truth is that for only a few hundred dollars more each year, you could have much better coverage. For example, waiving uninsured motorist coverage, might only save a person $50-75 a year but, could end up costing them tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncovered medical expenses if they are hit by an uninsured driver!
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