CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 10, 2012 | By Frank Shyong, Los Angeles Times
The neighborhood was unfamiliar and the local roads confusing. So like any wise traveler, the 300-pound black bear that sauntered through Montrose on Sunday morning headed for the freeway, prompting the California Highway Patrol to stop traffic on the 210 in both directions. The bear strolled through several residential yards, caused a brief panic at a soccer game at Crescenta Valley High School and engaged in a short staring contest with a woman reading the paper on her porch.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 24, 2012 | Sam Quinones and Rebecca Trounson
Irma Zamora's husband urged her not to get out of the car as they approached the scene of a spectacular traffic crash in Los Angeles' Valley Village neighborhood. But as he pulled over to call 911, she rushed out anyway, eager to help. A sport utility vehicle had just careened through the intersection of Magnolia Boulevard and Ben Avenue, shearing off a concrete light standard and knocking over a fire hydrant before coming to rest on a front lawn. Water spewed skyward from the broken hydrant and quickly pooled in the intersection.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 22, 2012 | By Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times
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.
HEALTH
April 10, 2012 | By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
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.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 14, 2012 | By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times
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.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 22, 2012 | By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times
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.