Four Fatalities

El Dorado Hills need for traffic patrol:
Four fatalities as sample cases

These four fatalities have occurred within the last five years. They include one death of a child who was hit and three deaths of teenage drivers. These four cases are a sample, not a comprehensive survey.

It is very highly probable that the deterrent value of effective traffic patrol would have prevented the first three deaths.

The photo at left was published in Village Life with the article reporting the death of Josh Anderson in 2005. In this photo emergency personnel are looking for anyone else who might have been ejected from the SUV.

In Sterlingshire a child from another EDH neighborhood was hit and killed.. Reported circumstances suggest that this probably would not have occurred if the driver had exercised.
Adam Berger, an 18-year-old Waterford resident died in an SUV rollover because he was not wearing a seat belt. He and a friend had worked on the SUV at the friend's house. Adam left, and while driving on a road near Folsom Dam his SUV left the roadway, entered a ditch, and rolled over. Adam was crushed by the SUV. The reason for leaving the roadway could not be determined. However, if Adam had worn a seat belt he would have survived.
Josh Anderson, a 19-year-old driver who lived in El Dorado Hills died in a more widely known SUV rollover on El Dorado Hills Blvd. He was reported to have been speeding at an estimated 70 mph and rolled when he took evasive action to avoid a collision with a much slower vehicle. Not wearing a seat belt, he was ejected and died from severe head injuries.
An 18-year-old driver who lived in Morgan Hill visited a friend in Folsom one day on a weekend. The friend's father bought a keg of beer for all of them. Later the visitor drove on to see a girl he knew in Waterford. He left by Waterford way of Lakehills Drive, accelerating his SUV to a speed of at least 80 mph, possibly over 100. Skid marks showed that he began braking far too late and could not make the turn onto Salmon Falls Road. He ran off the road at a high speed, crashed the fence around a home, and died when he was impaled by a piece of wood from the fence.

The first two fatalities probably would not have happened if the drivers had adopted driving habits typically seen in areas with good traffic patrol. Avoiding tickets also avoids many high-risk situations. The second and third deaths would not have occurred if the drivers had worn seatbelts. Seatbelt patrol is an example of a patrol duty that state law reserves to the CHP in unincorporated areas.

In separate incidents both Sterlingshire and Waterford have recorded drivers clocked on radar at speeds up to 78 mph on residential streets posted at 25 mph. The most common moving violations in residential areas are speeding, running stop signs, and other forms of reckless driving.

In other presentations we sometimes cite examples from a single intersection. These begin with cases such as observations of an SUV cornering on 3 wheels and near-collisions in the intersection due to traffic running a stop sign and drivers not checking for cross traffic. They escalate through a pet cat killed in traffic, periodic road kills of deer and other wild animals, a child riding a razor scooter who sustained a broken arm in a collision, and a car totaled in a collision. Also in the same immediate locality, the teen from Morgan Hills passed through this intersection just before his death. The adjacent area on Salmon Falls Road has had at least one fatality (a motorcyclist) and a car rollover that left one of its four occupants in critical condition, requiring amputation of his legs. Again, these are examples -- not a complete survey of local accident history.