Accidents

Ventura County prosecutors said Tuesday that they will not pursue a criminal case against a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who killed a man when he drove his SUV into a Fillmore Starbucks. The deputy, Michael Cedarland, suffered a seizure at the wheel and lost consciousness before crashing into the coffee shop on Dec. 13, 2011, said Kim Gibbons, the deputy district attorney handling the case. His blackout would "mandate an acquittal," Gibbons said, because it stemmed from a sudden illness rather than from a voluntary action such as excessive drinking.

In the end, professional baseball pitcher turned religion talk-show host Frank Pastore probably would have been philosophical about the motorcycle accident that claimed his life. Pastore, 55, died Monday from injuries suffered one month earlier when a car swerved into him on the 210 Freeway in Duarte as he was riding to his Upland home after finishing his daily show on KKLA-FM. His talk show, which aired from 4 to 7 p.m. on the Glendale station, was popular with conservative Christians and sometimes touched on his own baseball background as proof that divine intervention can change people forever.

Question: Do you have any statistics on rear-end accidents (from cars) while stopped at intersections aboard a motorcycle? -- Rick Lenning, Brea Answer: The only information I have about rear-end accidents has to do with fatal motorcycle crashes, and it doesn't specify if the rear-ending was from cars, though cars and trucks are the likely culprits. Statistics for 2005 from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System found that rear impacts were the "most harmful event" in fatal motorcycle crashes just 3.5% of the time.

Los Angeles County transit officials Thursday budgeted $6.78 million more for improvements on the Blue Line - one of the busiest light-rail lines in the nation, with 26 million riders annually and a history of accidents and fatalities. There have been eight deaths along the Blue Line so far this year, at least four of which were suicides, according to Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials. The most recent fatality occurred Thursday about 12:45 a.m., when officials said a woman apparently tried to swerve her Hyundai around lowered gate arms at a crossing in Compton and was struck by a Blue Line train.

A Dallas Cowboys player was arrested Saturday on charges of intoxication manslaughter after a rollover accident in Irving, Texas, that killed a teammate, police said. Police arrested defensive tackle Josh Brent, 24, after an early-morning accident that killed passenger Jerry Brown, 25, a linebacker on the Cowboys practice squad. Police said Brent was driving his car at a high rate of speed at 2:21 a.m., when he hit the outside curb on Route 114. The car flipped at least once before coming to rest in the middle of a service road.

NEW YORK — Jurors on Friday acquitted a driver of manslaughter in the deaths of 15 people killed when their tour bus smashed into a guardrail, tipped over and skidded hundreds of feet down an expressway — a crash prosecutors blamed on the unlicensed driver's fatigue. After eight days of deliberations and several weeks of testimony, including accounts from victims who had lost limbs in the horrific crash, the jury rejected the prosecution's argument and found the driver, Ophadell Williams, guilty of only one count: a misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle without a license.

A former Huntington Park police officer has filed a $500,000 legal claim against the city of Los Angeles, saying he suffered "serious multiple physical injuries" after his car was hit from behind by a city-owned SUV driven by City Councilman Jose Huizar. David Ceja, 49, said his 2002 Saturn was struck by Huizar's 2008 Toyota Highlander on 1st Street in Boyle Heights in October. Humberto Guizar, Ceja's attorney, said that in the minutes after the accident, Huizar repeatedly asked that the matter be handled without alerting the Los Angeles Police Department.

Lindsay Lohan was charged Thursday with three misdemeanors for allegedly lying to Santa Monica police in connection with a June traffic accident on Pacific Coast Highway, authorities said. The charges came hours after the actress was arrested in New York on suspicion of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, after she allegedly punched a woman in the face at Club Avenue in Manhattan's fashionable meatpacking district. Santa Monica prosecutors weighed charges against Lohan for weeks after police said they found evidence that she lied when she said she was not behind the wheel of a Porsche that collided with a dump truck.

BEIRUT - Syria was plunged into Internet darkness Thursday and much of the nation's telephone service was cut as fighting raged on the main road between Damascus and the capital's international airport. It could not be immediately determined whether the Internet blockage and the cutoff in telephone service were deliberate acts or the result of a power outage or damage to cables or other equipment. Fighting has engulfed several districts near the capital in recent weeks. Both sides reported clashes along the airport road.

You know what they say: L.A. drivers can't handle the rain. Many motorists didn't disprove the stereotype Thursday as rain slickened roadways and snarled the morning commute. The California Highway Patrol reported more than three times as many accidents (294) between 12:01 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Thursday than in the same time period a week ago (90), on Thanksgiving. Although there were some morning crashes that shut down area freeways - including a jackknifed big rig on the 5 Freeway in Glendale and a fatal crash on the 134 in Toluca Lake - CHP Officer Ed Jacobs said most were single-car spinouts.