Traffic Accidents

In a sting aimed at curbing accidents along the Blue Line, police and sheriff's deputies staked out a two-mile stretch of the line's tracks in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday and ticketed nearly 300 jaywalkers and drivers they caught using cellphones and making illegal left turns. Transportation officials said the crackdown was the latest effort in a push to improve safety along the Blue Line, the city's oldest and most popular light rail line but also its most dangerous. Ninety-nine people have died in accidents and suicides involving the line in the nearly 20 years since the service from Los Angeles to Long Beach began.

A man was recovering Monday after a fight in a Dodger Stadium parking lot following Sunday's game, renewing questions about how quickly and effectively security responds once a game ends. The fight began about 9 p.m. after a minor traffic accident. According to Los Angeles police, Arthur Morales, 30, knocked the victim to the ground while his pregnant girlfriend watched, stunned. At that point, Morales' friends got out of the vehicle and joined in. "They held the victim down on the ground and ... the fourth one kicked and punched him in the head," LAPD Cmdr.

In a region built around the automobile, the ritual of boys and young men racing their cars down highways and city streets was a problem long before 1950s hotrods fought for asphalt supremacy on Whittier Boulevard, Mulholland Drive and Pacific Coast Highway. But despite decades of trying, police are still struggling to fight the dangerous practice, which has been highlighted in the last year by a string of tragic collisions. Teenagers Pablo H.

Benjamin Franklin once said there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. Now, researchers have found that taxes might make death just a little more certain. Deaths from traffic accidents rise 6% on tax day, that mid-April paroxysm of collective financial agony, according to a study published in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. A pair of Canadian researchers tallied up U.S. tax day traffic fatalities for each year between 1980 and 2009, then compared the figures to those from two "control" days, exactly one week before and one week after.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for more than four years has been quietly replacing thousands of failed tires fitted on vans, light trucks and sport-utility vehicles and writing checks to customers, but only for those who complain, according to tire dealers and consumers.

March 1988* Property Damage CITY Total Only Injury Fatal Anaheim 478 280 194 4 Brea 52 40 12 0 Buena Park 115 70 45 0 Costa Mesa 139 64 75 0 Cypress 63 34 29 0 Fountain Valley 129 86 43 0 Fullerton 240 156 84 0 Garden Grove 313 190 123 0 Huntington Beach 339 230 107 2 Irvine 160 103 56 1 Laguna Beach 78 57 21 0 La Habra 64 46 18 0 La Palma 16 11 5 0 Los Alamitos 12 5 7 0 Newport Beach 155 98 57 0 Orange 169 122 47 0 Placentia 49 30 19 0 San Clemente 38 27 11 0 San Juan Capistrano 27 20 6 1

Benjamin Franklin once said there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. Now, researchers have found that taxes might make death just a little more certain. Deaths from traffic accidents rise 6% on tax day, that mid-April paroxysm of collective financial agony, according to a study published in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. A pair of Canadian researchers tallied up U.S. tax day traffic fatalities for each year between 1980 and 2009, then compared the figures to those from two "control" days, exactly one week before and one week after.

Two people were killed Friday in separate traffic accidents in the San Fernando Valley. Alma Vera Esteb, 75, of Canoga Park was walking in the Lucky's market parking lot at 7224 Mason Ave. in Canoga Park when she was struck by a Lucky's delivery truck, authorities said. She later died at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. The accident was under investigation. Authorities were also investigating a fatal crash that occurred about 6 p.m.

Police have identified a woman killed Monday in a three-car crash at Katella Avenue and Siboney Street as Beverly Zupanovich, 76, of Los Alamitos. Police are asking that any witnesses to the crash contact them.

Acknowledging major problems with the quality of its investigations into serious traffic collisions involving officers, the Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday announced new rules intended to improve the thoroughness and credibility of the inquiries. The move follows a pair of Los Angeles Times articles in January that examined the human and financial toll of officer-involved accidents. The Times found that police caused about 1,250 crashes over the last three years — an average of about one a day. Most were minor, but some resulted in life-threatening injuries or were the result of the officer violating traffic laws, according to LAPD records.

At any given moment in Los Angeles, scores of police cars are out on the streets — either rushing to calls for help or prowling around in search of trouble. Despite the training cops receive in how to speed safely through traffic, they are an accident-prone bunch. Police were involved in traffic accidents more than 1,250 times in the last three years — an average of about one a day. Most of the crashes were minor, but some resulted in life-threatening injuries or totaled police cars, or were the result of the officer violating traffic laws, according to LAPD records.

A fiery crash on the 110 Freeway and several other traffic accidents have claimed the lives of five people on Los Angeles County streets and highways so far over the Labor Day weekend, authorities said. In the 110 Freeway accident, a man died early Sunday when he was trapped under a flaming 1971 Chevy Monte Carlo that was struck after it had stopped on the shoulder of the southbound lanes near 52nd Street. The 18-year-old driver of a 2008 Smart car apparently swerved to avoid rear-ending a vehicle directly ahead, hitting the Monte Carlo.

Barry Zito's scheduled Sunday start appears in jeopardy after the San Francisco Giants pitcher was involved in a car accident Wednesday night in West Hollywood. Zito reported to Dodger Stadium on Thursday wearing a neck brace. The Giants sent him for an MRI examination and will await the results before determining whether he might pitch Sunday. "He's pretty shaken up," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. Zito was unavailable for comment, but he told Bochy he had neck and back soreness.

The justice was served. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was ticketed by U.S. Park Police after being found responsible for a four-car traffic accident on his way to the high court Tuesday morning. The incident occurred just before 9 a.m. on the southbound George Washington Parkway across the Potomac River from Washington in Virginia. Scalia reportedly rear-ended another driver who had stopped in traffic, and two other vehicles followed behind. No one was injured. Scalia was handed a $70 fine for the infraction of following too closely.

They were both working-class girls from Southern California immigrant families. One was of Vietnamese heritage, the other Mexican. One was reserved, the other vivacious. Both surmounted hardships to graduate from UCLA and be admitted to prestigious East Coast universities for graduate studies. And both shared a particular passion: a commitment to assist undocumented students like themselves attend college, attain legal status and escape the shadow existence of illegal immigrants.

In a sting aimed at curbing accidents along the Blue Line, police and sheriff's deputies staked out a two-mile stretch of the line's tracks in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday and ticketed nearly 300 jaywalkers and drivers they caught using cellphones and making illegal left turns. Transportation officials said the crackdown was the latest effort in a push to improve safety along the Blue Line, the city's oldest and most popular light rail line but also its most dangerous. Ninety-nine people have died in accidents and suicides involving the line in the nearly 20 years since the service from Los Angeles to Long Beach began.