Deadly Thanksgiving weekend on Bay Area, California roads
(Leigh Martinez/KTVU) - It was a deadly weekend on Bay Area roads, with three fatal crashes on Sunday alone, which included the death of a 10-year-old San Francisco girl.
Rain may have been a factor in at least some of the accidents as the roads were slick. And driving under the influence also was a factor, or a suspected one, in some of the other accidents.
At least 76 people died in California traffic collisions during the "Thanksgiving Maximum Enforcement Period," which started at 6:01 p.m. Nov. 22 and ended 11:59 p.m. Nov. 22, according to CHP. Officers made 1,057 DUI arrests during the 102-hour stretch, a 17-percent increase from last year.
Fifty-three percent of vehicle occupants killed in CHP jurisdiction were not wearing a seat belt.
In one of the most recent and tragic accidents, a sedan spun out of control Sunday on I-80 at the Berkeley curve in Emeryville, crashing into a pickup truck. One passenger, a 10-year-old girl, was killed. The girl has been identified as 10-year-old Crystal Vasquez of San Francisco.
Crystal was a passenger in a white Ford SUV that was traveling at a high rate of speed for the wet conditions, lost control and went sideways into a green Ford pickup truck that lost control a few moments earlier just west of the Powell Street exit at about 9:45 a.m. Sunday, California Highway
Patrol Officer Michael Hamer said.
The pickup truck had come to a stop blocking the third lane from the left, Hamer said.
The driver of the SUV and a young person in the SUV were both taken to hospitals to be treated for their injuries, according to Hamer.
Also on Sunday, a man died in Sausalito when he lost control and rolled his van on U.S. Highway 101. The roof came off and the driver was ejected.
"So, right now, we don't know if alcohol or drugs were involved,” said CHP Officer Mary Ziegenbein, “but quite possibly unsafe speed due to the rainy weather and the wet road way and there was a bald tire that possibly could've contributed to it."
On Saturday evening, multiple cars crashed on I-80 near San Pablo Dam road, where the westbound side of the freeway was shut down for seven hours. Four people in one vehicle were killed and another six seriously injured, the CHP said. CHP officers say the driver who caused the accident left the scene; Sacramento resident Fred Lowe was later arrested on suspicion of felony hit and run and DUI. The Contra Costa County Coroner's office identified the victims as Daryl Horn, 50, and Joseph Horn, 14, both of Napa, and Troy Biddle, 52, and Baden Biddle, 12, both of Bainbridge Island in Washington. UC Berkeley officials told KTVU that Jared Horn of Napa, a freshman and baseball player, survived the accident.
Also on Saturday night, Seven of eight teenagers suffered major injuries in a crash late
Saturday night on state Highway 92 in San Mateo, and were taken to Stanford Hospital.
There was also a deadly accident in Mountain View on Highway 101. The CHP says a Sunnyvale man died after he was cut off by another car when he swerved to try to avoid hitting that car, he lost control.
On Friday, the driver of a big rig died after drifting into the carpool lane and slamming into a center divide on Interstate 80.
And just before the Thanksgiving weekend official began, 16-year-old Violet Campbell was killed in a DUI car crash on Wednesday in Livermore. Violet was one of five people in an SUV that veered off the road and flipped. Alexys Garcia, 26, was critically injured in the accident and has not been conscious since. The other passengers were not seriously injured. The driver was arrested for driving under the influence.