Traffic Accidents

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

Given the personal suffering caused by traffic accidents -- 1.2 million deaths a year worldwide -- there's far too little attention paid by health researchers, scientists argued Tuesday. In 2030, such accidents are projected to become the fifth-leading cause of death, and already 20 million people are left disabled by accidents every year, the researchers from the University of Toronto wrote in an essay in the online journal PLOS Medicine. "The paradoxical mismatch between relative importance and relative inattention has led to repeated calls for changes to promote more public health protection," Donald Redelmeier and Barry McLellan wrote.

* March March 1987-'88 City 1988 1987 Change Anaheim 30 42 -12 Brea 4 4 -- Buena Park 8 12 -4 Costa Mesa 13 10 3 Cypress 5 3 2 Fountain Valley 4 7 -3 Fullerton 11 13 -2 Garden Grove 27 18 9 Huntington Beach 25 19 6 Irvine 4 7 -3 Laguna Beach 2 4 -2 La Habra 2 5 -3 La Palma 1 1 -- Los Alamitos 1 1 -- Newport Beach 5 7 -2 Orange 13 18 -5 Placentia 1 3 -2 San Clemente 2 2 -- San Juan Capistrano 0 3 -3 Santa Ana 50 36 14 Seal Beach 1 2 -1 Stanton 3 4 -1 Tustin 10 6 4 Villa Park 0 0 -- Westminster

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.

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.

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.

The California Highway Patrol reported about half as many traffic accidents countywide this Thanksgiving holiday weekend as there were last year. During the maximum enforcement period--which ran from 6 p.m. Wednesday to midnight Sunday--there were 23 traffic accidents, compared with 43 last year. Eighteen of the accidents last year resulted in injury, but this year only five of the accidents were injury-related.

* March March 1987-'88 City 1988 1987 Change Anaheim 16 13 3 Brea 1 1 -- Buena Park 2 2 -- Costa Mesa 4 2 2 Cypress 5 7 -2 Fountain Valley 3 6 -3 Fullerton 4 6 -2 Garden Grove 4 6 -2 Huntington Beach 14 11 3 Irvine 3 3 -- Laguna Beach 1 0 1 La Habra 3 3 0 La Palma 0 0 -- Los Alamitos 0 0 -- Newport Beach 15 7 8 Orange 1 12 -11 Placentia 1 2 -1 San Clemente 1 1 -- San Juan Capistrano 0 0 -- Santa Ana 23 21 2 Seal Beach 0 0 6 Stanton 1 2 -1 Tustin 3 4 -1 Villa Park 0 0 -- Westminster 4 4 -- Yorba

Five people were injured in three separate traffic accidents in western Ventura County on Wednesday as their vehicles careened off winding mountain and beachfront highways. At 2:30 p.m. on California 150, west of Lake Casitas, a passing motorist observed a man who had crawled about 100 feet up an embankment alongside the winding highway, authorities said. California Highway Patrol officials said the accident apparently occurred about 5 a.m. but was not discovered until the afternoon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.