Gorman: Fatal Collision Between Minivan And Truck Carrying Inmate-Staffed L.A. County Fire Crew Killed Two

At approximately 2:20 p.m. this afternoon, a crash involving a minivan and a truck carrying an inmate-staffed L.A. County fire crew on Highway 138 near Gorman killed two people and seriously injured several others. Some members of the crew—composed of prisoners from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation—were trapped in the vehicle while others were ejected as it rolled about 150 feet from the point of impact. Earlier in the day, they had been clearing brush from firebreaks or roadsides, part of a program supervised by the county Fire Department. The California Highway Patrol was at the accident scene to investigate, explains a California truck accident lawyer. 

Trucks, sport utility vehicles, and minivans are highly susceptible to rollover accidents, with more than 280,000 such crashes reported annually, over 10,000 of which prove deadly, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A vehicle’s center of gravity and track width, the distance between the left and right wheel, significantly influence its risk of a rollover accident: the higher the center of gravity and the narrower the track, the greater the risk. According to the California Highway Patrol’s 2008 Annual Report of Fatal and Injury Motor Vehicle Traffic Collisions, Los Angeles accounted for 60 of the 265 fatal and 1,701 of 5,810 injury traffic collisions—more than in any other county that year.

All of us at Allen, Flatt, Ballidis, and Leslie would like to offer our condolences to the families of the two people who died in this accident. We would also like to wish those who were injured a full recovery.

The Los Angeles Times originally reported this fatal collision between a minivan and a truck carrying an inmate-staffed L.A. County fire crew. 

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