GILROY
– Between visiting for Thanksgiving and shopping for Christmas,
people were doing a lot of driving this weekend. Combine that
congestion with a dose of liquid holiday cheer, and the South
Valley saw a lot of wrecks.
GILROY – Between visiting for Thanksgiving and shopping for Christmas, people were doing a lot of driving this weekend. Combine that congestion with a dose of liquid holiday cheer, and the South Valley saw a lot of wrecks.
There were 28 vehicle collisions from Wednesday to Sunday, eight with one or more injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol. Driving-under-the-influence arrests were made in connection with three accidents.
It could easily have been worse. There were no highway-related deaths, and none of the accidents caused more than minor injuries. No more than two people were hurt in any given wreck.
DUI arrests and DUI-related crashes were up this year, however. CHP officers made 18 DUI arrests from Wednesday to Sunday, three from accident scenes. On the 2002 long weekend, there were 11 DUI arrests, only one resulting from a collision.
Crashes and injuries were down somewhat from last year. During the same five days in 2002, the CHP logged 32 accidents, 11 with injury.
Overall, CHP Officer and spokesman Brad Voyles described the holiday weekend as “not too bad.”
Statewide, however, Voyles’ assessment didn’t hold true.
It was a particularly deadly holiday weekend, the CHP reported, with at least 31 people killed in traffic accidents and more than 1,500 people arrested for investigation of drunk driving, including one man who could also face murder charges.
Thirty-one people died in California traffic accidents between 6 p.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Sunday, the CHP reported. Twenty-seven people died during the same period last year.
Final figures for the entire holiday period, which runs from 6 p.m. Wednesday until midnight Sunday, were expected to be tabulated and released sometime Monday. The CHP office in Gilroy considered all day Wednesday to be part of the holiday weekend, since travel traffic on state Highway 152 began to back up by 10 a.m. that morning.
Four of the deaths were in Los Angeles County, two more than during the same period in 2002, the CHP said. One person was killed in San Diego County, down from three last year.
CHP officers arrested 1,515 people statewide for investigation of drunken driving, up from 1,444 arrests last year over the same period.
Among those taken into custody was one man arrested for investigation of murder and driving under the influence after police said he was involved in a crash early Sunday in West Covina that killed four people.
Authorities said a car driven by Steven Estrada, 26, of West Covina, broadsided a Toyota Corolla about 1:30 a.m. on a residential street in West Covina, a suburban city about 25 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Four people in the Toyota, who ranged in age from 22 to 34, were killed. Estrada and a passenger in the Acura he was driving suffered minor injuries, police said.
West Covina police Lt. Pete Mena said Estrada was arrested for investigation of murder and felony drunk driving and was booked at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where he was taken for his injuries.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
