GILROY
– A 20-year-old Gilroy man died behind the wheel of a sports car
after colliding head-on with a pickup truck minutes after noon
Monday on Luchessa Avenue, during a period of heavy rainfall.
GILROY – A 20-year-old Gilroy man died behind the wheel of a sports car after colliding head-on with a pickup truck minutes after noon Monday on Luchessa Avenue, during a period of heavy rainfall.
Jeremy Edward Cooner was a student at De Anza College in Cupertino and was preparing to transfer to San Jose State University in hopes of pursuing a career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to his parents, Ed and Cindy Cooner. He was a graduate of Lynbrook High School in San Jose, where he was a trumpet player and drum major in the school band. He also recently achieved his black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
“He had an easy way of making friends,” his father said this morning. “He was a quality Christian young man. He had a very vital faith.”
The Cooners moved to Gilroy about three years ago and live on Greenfield Drive, about half a mile from the accident scene. They arrived there, on Luchessa Avenue just east of Princevalle Street, within minutes of the wreck and wept when they heard the news.
Their son had been pinned in the driver’s seat of the red Toyota MR2 sports car he was driving. Paramedics pronounced him dead at 12:17 p.m.
The police department’s Major Accident Investigation Team is trying to determine the cause of the wreck and which driver, if either, was at fault. As of Monday afternoon, MAIT officers had identified weather, speed and mechanical issues as possible factors leading to the wreck, according to police Sgt. Kurt Ashley.
“It will probably take them several days to a week” before investigators issue a report, Ashley said – “unless they run into some problems.”
The county coroner’s staff will determine if Jeremy Cooner was intoxicated – standard practice when the death is from a motor-vehicle accident, a staff member there said.
The collision crushed the front driver’s side corner of the Toyota, impacting all of the way back to the driver’s seat. The car came to a rest completely off the road. The other vehicle, a beige Dodge Dakota pickup truck, received heavy front-end damage. The Toyota was eastbound on Luchessa Avenue and the pickup westbound, according to police.
The pickup driver had a sore foot after the wreck but declined medical treatment, according to Ashley. This driver was the sole surviving witness to the accident and gave a statement to police, but police declined to release this statement.
There were no passengers in either vehicle.
Police did not say whether the drivers were wearing seat belts.
Police were called to the scene at 12:08 p.m. and blocked off Luchessa from Princevalle Street to Church Street for several hours Monday afternoon, waiting for a coroner to arrive from San Jose. Jeremy Cooner’s body was removed from the scene at about 3:30 p.m., according to police. The wreckage was towed away and the street reopened soon after.
This fatal accident was one of at least six crashes in the South Valley between 11:30 a.m. and noon Monday, during which heavy rain was falling and accumulating on roadways. During that half-hour period, California Highway Patrol officers responded to five accidents on U.S. 101 between Coyote and San Juan Bautista.
Two Honda Civics crashed and burst into flames at 11:30 a.m. on U.S. 101 southbound, just south of the Pajaro River bridge near San Juan Bautista. Driver Lori Jean Matteucci, 22, of Santa Clara, complained of pain afterward but declined medical treatment. According to CHP, Matteucci was passing another Civic – driven by Jennifer Diane Tysseland, 27, of Dallas, Texas – when she lost control and struck Tysseland’s car.
The collision disrupted traffic for 20 to 30 minutes and backed cars up to the Tenth Street exit, according to CHP Officer Terry Mayes.
At about noon, there was a single-vehicle crash on the on-ramp to southbound U.S. 101 from Monterey Street. An ambulance took the driver of the Dodge Dakota pickup – Christopher Alexander Larkin, 28, of Hollister – to Saint Louise Regional Hospital after he complained of back pain, according to CHP.
Three solo accidents without injury took place on northbound U.S. 101 in the vicinity of the Coyote Creek bridge, according to CHP: one at 11:35 a.m., one at 11:45 a.m. and one at noon.
While the rainy weather was likely a factor in the accidents, Mayes said they could probably have been avoided if the drivers had driven more carefully.
“The parties involved would like to believe that the weather caused their (accidents), but the way they conducted their vehicles on the wet roads was the real cause,” Mayes said.
“That sounds kind of harsh coming from us,” she added, but she noted that drivers have a responsibility to slow down and be more cautious in general on wet roads.
“No doubt that (the rain) contributed to their loss of control, but that’s not the cause,” Mayes said.
Eight-tenths of an inch of rain fell in Gilroy in the 24-hour period from 4 p.m. Sunday to 4 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
The forecast is for decreasing rain a slight chance of light rain today. But, by Wednesday the chances of rain will be 40 percent increasing to 60 percent on New Year’s Day. Highs will hover between the high 50s and low 60s; lows in the upper 30s to low 40s.
