Traffic Accidents Mexico

Authorities on both sides of the Mexican border say the fatal weekend car crash after which two men from Orange County were held despite their injuries illustrates a harsh truth that too few tourists understand: Mexico is a foreign country with laws much different from those Americans take for granted.

Two adults, a teenager and three children, all Los Angeles residents, died Thursday when the pickup truck in which they were traveling hit a parked truck on a border highway in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. A seventh passenger, 17-year-old Jose Briceno, was slightly injured in the accident near San Luis Rio Colorado, across the border from Yuma, Arizona.

The father of a man involved in a fatal car crash in Baja California over the weekend criticized Mexican authorities Monday for holding two injured passengers on high bail amounts before releasing them. "There is no way to protect yourself except not to be there," said Kevin Lewand, a Tustin lawyer whose son was seriously injured in the crash early Saturday morning near Rosarito Beach. The single-car rollover crash killed the driver and injured another passenger.

The worldwide legal headaches of Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone have widened to include Mexico, where a law firm said Friday that complaints are surfacing each day of serious accidents involving Ford Explorers mounted with defective Firestone tires. The law firm, Servicios Legales Internacionales, says it has filed 12 lawsuits against Ford and Firestone in Nashville, in connection with 28 deaths in Mexico that purportedly resulted from such accidents.

The top opposition candidate for Chiapas governor was critically injured in a mysterious highway collision Monday, stoking political tensions. Amado Avendano Figueroa, a 60-year-old lawyer who has represented Indian peasants in land disputes, was injured and three others were killed when a truck struck their campaign car in a remote area of the state, police said. Avendano was reported in critical but stable condition. The candidate's son was also injured.

Former presidential candidate Manuel J. Clouthier, the fiery, heavy-set leader of the conservative National Action Party, was killed in an automobile crash Sunday on the way from his hometown of Culiacan, Sinaloa, to a campaign rally in Mazatlan. Clouthier, 55, died along with Javier Calvo, the National Action Party's Sinaloa state chairman, at about 11:30 a.m. when the car they were riding in collided head-on with a truck, a party official said.

The worldwide legal headaches of Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone have widened to include Mexico, where a law firm said Friday that complaints are surfacing each day of serious accidents involving Ford Explorers mounted with defective Firestone tires. The law firm, Servicios Legales Internacionales, says it has filed 12 lawsuits against Ford and Firestone in Nashville, in connection with 28 deaths in Mexico that purportedly resulted from such accidents.

At least 18 people died and 54 were injured when two buses collided in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, the government news agency Notimex reported. It said the collision was near the town of La Blanca, about 30 miles southeast of the city of Zacatecas. Police blamed heavy fog for the collision. Federal highway police said the passengers on one of the buses were on a religious pilgrimage. The other vehicle was a regular passenger bus.

A bus in Mexico City carrying Mike Tyson, world heavyweight champion, and promoter Don King was involved in a minor accident, but no one was injured.

Twenty-eight Mexicans have died in car crashes blamed on the failure of Firestone tires fitted to sport-utility vehicles and light trucks, lawyers for victims' families said. Rafael Alday, of the firm Servicios Legales Internacionales, said the defective tires had been linked to 30 accidents in Mexico in which another 32 people had been seriously hurt.

A Texas state judge on Thursday dismissed a $2-billion product liability lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler and slapped three San Antonio attorneys with a $920,000 fine after ruling they had tampered with evidence and attempted to bribe witnesses, the auto maker said.

A spate of unhappy news involving U.S. visitors to Baja California that has roiled passions along the international border has some Baja officials worried about the possible harm to their all-important tourism industry. It was bad enough, tourism officials say, that Mexico's federal government abruptly unveiled a fee of 150 pesos--about $16--that must be paid by visitors who stay more than three days or venture south of Ensenada.

Authorities on both sides of the Mexican border say the fatal weekend car crash after which two men from Orange County were held despite their injuries illustrates a harsh truth that too few tourists understand: Mexico is a foreign country with laws much different from those Americans take for granted.

Family members of three friends involved in a fatal car crash in Baja California over the weekend criticized Mexican authorities Monday for detaining those injured and demanding high bail amounts for their release. The crash again triggered warnings about the dangers that Americans face when they cross the border, an issue that last flared in August when the family of an injured San Diego County man had to pay $7,000 before he could be transferred to a U.S. hospital, where he died.

The father of a man involved in a fatal car crash in Baja California over the weekend criticized Mexican authorities Monday for holding two injured passengers on high bail amounts before releasing them. "There is no way to protect yourself except not to be there," said Kevin Lewand, a Tustin lawyer whose son was seriously injured in the crash early Saturday morning near Rosarito Beach. The single-car rollover crash killed the driver and injured another passenger.

An automobile accident in Baja California claimed the lives of three Long Beach residents. The Imperial County Sheriff's Department said Brett Woodson, 34; Rhonda Vasquez, 34, and her husband, Hector, also 34, were in a car that went out of control and overturned several times on Mexican Highway 3, near San Felipe.

Mexico City's top law enforcement official has called for mandatory insurance for the capital's 3 million car owners to protect accident victims.

A weekend reunion in Baja California for three former Santa Ana high school buddies turned to tragedy after a car accident killed one and injured the others. The single-car accident occurred Saturday in Rosarito Beach, said Tijuana police spokesman Raul Gonsalez. Both survivors said they weren't to blame for the accident because the Jeep Cherokee was being driven by Keith Takabayashi, 31, of Santa Ana, who died in the crash.

A weekend reunion in Baja California for three men who grew up together in Santa Ana turned to tragedy after a car accident killed one and injured the others. Before the weekend was over, one of them was forced to wait nearly a day and pay nearly $11,000 so he could get treatment at a U.S. hospital. The other was put in a jail cell, then hospitalized under police guard so he could be questioned.