A 58-year-old New Hampshire man is dead after a hit-and-run, rollover collision Wednesday on northbound U.S. Highway 101 just south of Woodside Road, California Highway Patrol officials said.
The first report of the crash came in at 1 p.m. It appears a 2000 light brown Toyota Sienna clipped a 2006 silver Scion driven by the New Hampshire man. He lost control of the vehicle and it rolled in the center divide, CHP Officer Art Montiel said.
The New Hampshire man had his seat belt on but suffered major injuries in the crash. He died at 1:50 p.m. at Stanford Hospital.
Some witnesses told CHP officers the driver of the Toyota was speeding, Officer Montiel said.
No other vehicles were involved and no other passengers were in the Scion.
CHP officers are asking for help locating the driver of the Toyota. They do not yet have a description of the driver.
Anyone with information about the person or the collision is asked to call the California Highway Patrol or 911.
By Bay City News Service
By Bay City News Service
By Bay City News Service
I hope they catch the run away coward and put him in jail for life.
Virtually every time I get on 101 I see people driving like they are playing a video game.
Someone stated the driver that caused the accident was speeding, but almost everyone is speeding on 101 these days. It’s not so much the speeding as the weaving that seems a bigger problem to me.
Many drivers are constantly changing lanes needlessly dodging immediately in and out of other drivers, and when they need to get to an off-ramp some changing 2 to 3 lanes of traffic instead of paying attention to their turnoff and preparing for it. I cannot tell you how many time I see someone coming up from behind me weaving through the lanes in front of and behind people furiously to get ahead of traffic and then a few minutes later they are stuck in a lane as I pass them again.
Once again – MANDATORY OFFICIAL DRIVING COURSES FOR EVERYBODY.
So many foreign drivers in America, especially the Bay Area, are driving on International Drivers Licenses. These are far, far too easy to obtain and require to practical knowledge or certification of driving skill–just pay to get one. In Asian and some African countries, as well as the US, it is legal to drive, rent, or even buy a car with an International Drivers Lucense. However, in most of the world, it was made illegal long ago, for safety reasons.
Another problem that a police officer friend told me about is counterfeit California Drivers Licenses fabricated in China. They are so near-identical to the real thing that they frequently fool law enforcement officers–even the CHP. Unfortunately, my friend has stated, almost all of the counterfeit licenses confiscated so far have been in the possession of Chinese nationals who had no other ID at hand at the time of arrest!
I saw this on the morning news. My husband was involved on an almost identical crash two weeks ago on 101 North, near Sunnyvale, coming home from work. He was cut off sharply from the right, swerved to the left to avoid the car, then lost control and skidded across all the lanes to end up sliding backwards on the grass until he landed downhill against a tree. He lost consciousness momentarily and was transported to Stanford. Luckily, he only suffered a cut eye. Our car was totaled. The car that started this zoomed off. No description of driver or car.
We have a point against our insurance, had to buy a new car, my husband suffered pain stiffness, and looks like a racoon.
I agree completely with Plane Speaker about the weavers. I believe we need more public service instructions on driving. More importantly, we need STRICTER ENFORCEMENT OF THE EXISTING LAWS.
Our highways are so inadequate to our needs. At present 101 is way below the limit most of the time. On the few occasions that it isn’t, there are always those who are so delighted to be able to put their foot down on the gas pedal and speed that it appears to me to be a way of getting rid of the frustrations of the normal slow speeds that hamper our highways.
And yes, we do have many who like to weave for no real reason at all sorts of speeds. There seem to be those who think that managing to get ahead by 50 cars makes their commute faster.
We all need to stay calm, think before lane changing, and have patience. On the few occasions we can do the limit, don’t go crazy.
The innocent driver usually is the one who loses his life. What a shame!
This is one of the many consequences of overpopulation. The pressure to drive faster and beat others. Drivers on 101 are becoming increasingly aggressive, inconsiderate and belligerent. 101 has become the new and even more dangerous 405. It’s now a very dangerous freeway. I avoid it at any cost.
A couple of years ago, a new co-worker from Hong Kong bought a new Honda. We knew he didn’t have a CA drivers license yet, so we wondered how he was able to buy and insure it.
Within one month of purchase, he totaled the car. Miraculously, within two weeks he had another new car. By this time he was living in Mtn View, and our company is located in North San Jose. Our boss told him to take it easy with a new car on a longer drive, insurance may not replace another wrecked car.
Sure enough, despite insisting he was driving slowly and carefully, he totaled the second Honda five weeks later.
This time, the car was replaced, but it took six weeks instead of two. And it took him longer to recover from his injuries; since he had been driving in freeway traffic as opposed to city traffic, the injuries were more severe.
I thought by now this guy would have been duly chastised and truly take care with his driving. My coworkers thought it odd that the two replacements were the same silver blue as the original, and equipped exactly the same, but who knows? Maybe the insurance company was lucky in finding replacements.
One day about ten weeks later, “Peter” did not show up for work. When the same thing happened the following day, our boss called his apartment, and left a message. This was repeated three times a day for a week.
To make a long, long story short: Peter’s “wife” called. No one, not our boss or anyone else, knew he was married. Turned out Peter was in County Jail for driving on a phony license, and for causing an accident in which a pregnant woman was killed and her husband seriously injured.
She also told us that Peter had NEVER had instruction, it is very costly in China. They had been unable to even find driving instruction HERE!
So Peter made the irresponsible decision to teach himself, and took the lives of a woman and her unborn child.
How is ANYONE, unless they learn informally from another adult? Is that even legal? What do teens do?
Without proper instruction anymore, it’s no wonder there are so many bad drivers causing real harm on the road!
I saw the aftermath of the accident including the poor guy on the road motionless, surrounded by paramedics, his car a wreck. It was devastating. Please, everyone, have compassion on the road.
SELLer of car to TONY should be strictly liable, for selling a car to an unlicensed driver.
company should be liable for allowing unlicensed driver to park at workplace
country of origin should be liable for all crimes and injuries caused in this country–china can afford it!!!
Los Angeles driving has infiltrated Northern California.
And driver’s ed is a joke nowadays, with youths taking ineffective online classes (no other classes offered). My children learned mostly in driver’s training classes. Adults don’t even need to take classes – they must only pass the written test and driver’s test. Therefore, many teens are just waiting till they turn 18 so they don’t have to take driver’s training or complete the mandatory 50 hours of driving (honor system).
When I was at Paly in the 80s, we’d have driver’s ed after school for 3 months so we were well-prepared to drive prior to driver’s training, which also was available at Paly.
On a side note, for license processing (such as taking the written test) the San Jose DLPC (Driver’s License Processing Center) offers next day appointments so I was in/out in 15 minutes. Note: No behind-the-wheel driving tests, however. It’s a new, huge facility (December 2014) with 60 windows. It’s a hike, but no more dreading DMV visits. They only accept cash, checks, money orders and debit cards. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/fo/offices/fieldoffice?number=645 Yelp reviews: https://www.yelp.com/biz/department-of-motor-vehicles-san-jose-4
There is a huge problem in Silicon Valley with self-taught adult drivers.
In 2012 I was hit by such a driver, who was driving a large Mercedes S class, while I was riding my bike home from work on the Stanford campus. I always carry a pen and paper in one of the packs on my bike, and I got his license plate, then called 911 on my cell phone. My elbow was broken and my knee dislocated because this guy had run a stop sign and turned left just as I entered the intersection.
This meant a cast on my arm and reconstructive surgery on my knee ( actually, three surgeries on my knee). The self-taught driver, who drove on an international license ( apparently no experience required to obtain one) was liable for my medical bills and the time I lost from work. I was off for nine months!
The insult to injury is that until he either moved away or bought a new car, I saw him on the road, in that same car he hit me with, until 2014!
I should have clarified: the self-taught driver, who was driving on an international license at the time he hit me broadside, left the scene of the accident. When the PAPD caught up to him, he claimed he was unaware of hitting anything, even though I made eye contact with him, even though the impact left its marks on his grill. He wasn’t even arrested, just continued to drive on an international license!