Marge was awakened Tuesday morning by a screech of breaks and the unmistakable sound of a car crash. She immediately called the Malibu sheriff and reported the accident, which was at the intersection of Kanan Dume Road and Pitsch/Latigo Canyon Roads near Calamigos Ranch.
At the same time, I was returning from a jog on Kanan-Dume and the strange shape of a dark colored car loomed quiet and eerie in the center of the road. Coming closer I saw a parked car on Latigo Canyon Road with a person in the driver’s seat attending a standing woman. I asked if she’d called the police and she assured me she had, then drove off. The lady and I stood in the fog alone. She seemed surprisingly calm and I asked if she was all right. She said, “No. Probably a broken thumb.” I looked at her left lower arm, which had a bad scrape and a swelling blue welt.
Across Kanan, I was aware of the shadowy presence of someone else helping the other driver. His/her car didn’t seem as violently damaged as my lady’s car and I, perhaps wrongly, assumed the owner of the other car not so badly injured, even though a wheel had been knocked off and rolled to the shoulder. The whole right front of the looming car and engine owned by my lady had been pummeled to an indescribable mess.
For a few moments things were silent. I was aware of the fog and a quiet breeze drifting, and decided I’d stay with the lady until help arrived. She may have needed someone to be with her. I asked if she’d like to sit down. She said, “No. If I do, I’ll faint.” We exchanged our names, then she handed me a camera and asked if I’d be willing to take some pictures. I said, “certainly” and walked into the street to take a shot in the dim light. To get another angle, I walked to the side of the car only to be missed by another car that flew silently out of the foggy darkness and crashed into the damaged car sending it another 40 feet down the street, and following that one, a fourth car caromed into the back of him. Both cars, though damaged, were able to move slowly onto the shoulder. It became blatantly clear we had all the requirements for multi-car collisions.
My lady screamed “stop!” at a fifth car. The driver, seeing the situation, slammed his brakes and skidded to a heartrending stop two feet in front of the damaged car, then pulled around and exited slowly into the fog. I had to admire my lady for understanding the seriousness of the situation and doing all she could to prevent others from disaster by shouting with all her might several times, “stop, stop.” All told, shouting at drivers was not going to do the job. They needed visual warning. I took off my sweatshirt and began waving at approaching cars.
I think I was successful slowing down four or five cars until I noticed a blinking red light farther up the road waving the cars down. I ran ahead and discovered Fred Sabbage, one of the managers of Glen Gerson’s, Calamigos Ranch. He’d accepted a lighted flare given him by someone and was flagging people down, even though seeing one flare in heavy fog was difficult. We exchanged greetings and taking two positions about 30 yards apart we blinked and waved the cars to a stop before they could hit each other. We slowed and stopped 30 to 50 cars, which stacked up upon each other and forced us to advance the distance of our signals. Eventually there were 400 yards of cars in an uneven line, some moving slowly past, some on the shoulder, some waiting.
After an interminable period, perhaps 25 minutes, a fire engine, paramedic truck, ambulance and a police car arrived. With the blinking lights, we thought we were done, but still I had to run to the Fire Department and beg the guys to get some flares out right away. Which, they did.
Everything being under control, I returned to the lady who, by this time, had her arm in a splint and was being put painfully on to a cot to be moved to a gurney, then the paramedic truck. Worried because I was late coming back from my run, Marge came out looking for me, hoping I was not a victim. I told her I’d been flagging traffic.
The lessons are the same old ones, but they need repeating. Don’t follow too closely behind another car, especially when it’s foggy and you can’t see. If you are forced to stop in a pile-up line, pull to the shoulder so you won’t be hit by the next car. Drive with caution on Dume-Kanan Road. Glen Gerson and his staff at Calamigos Ranch have assisted crashed motorists for years and should be given a medal. Marge and I have attended the tragic result of two cars that have skidded on the shoulder and rolled 40 feet down the embankment to land between the oaks in our creek behind my studio. Drive carefully.
Doug Rucker