On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #s 2649-2654

A month or so has gone by and another rash of accidents and near-accidents in Carbon Canyon.

Last Thursday, as I was driving westbound from Chino Hills on my way home to Sleepy Hollow, there was a pretty major two-car crash at the intersection of Carbon Canyon Road and Fairway Drive, the same intersection that would be at issue in the proposed Stonefield housing development and in the same area that Chino Hills city staff says has one-third the accidents of comparable highways (with what criteria and standards?) in the state. It looked as if someone was turning left onto Fairway from eastbound Carbon Canyon and collided with someone coming westbound or from Fairway turning onto Carbon Canyon and getting hit by a westbound driver. Some rather severe body damage to both vehicles, but apparently no major injuries.

Around the same time, there was an accident at Azurite Drive at Carbon Canyon Road at the entrance to the Summit Ranch neighborhood, because there is a long line of broken glass along the left turn lane off the eastbound lane of Carbon Canyon Road. Seems like someone was making that left and a collision ensued with a westbound driver.

Meantime, someone went off the road on the westbound lane of the highway on the Brea side at the far western end of the old La Vida Mineral Springs property. In the above photos, two green spraypainted markers can be observed. These were obviously made by law enforcement to mark the beginning of a skid (to measure speed, probably) and what may have been a point of impact. Tire marks then lead off the road.

Also in view here are three more areas of drivers veering off the road, though not in as serious a way as the above. The first is also in Brea as a westbound vehicle skidded off into the opposing lane and bounced off the hillside. The second, again in Brea, indicates that a driver went across the eastbound lane and into the shoulder of the westbound side, also at the La Vida Mineral Springs site. In instance #3, someone, perhaps a motorcyclist, took a little detour off the highway on the eastbound lane in Sleepy Hollow just off Rosemary Lane and plowed through a little bit of the easement and landscaping there.

All of this has happened within the last few weeks, evidence enough that unsafe driving continues to be a regular occurrence. Amazingly, no major injuries or deaths have happened on the road for quite some time, which truly seems like circumstance given all of the incidents documented on this blog.