Preliminary APD Investigation Shows Driver Lost Control, Tying Up Traffic For Hours
A sleek, dark, new model four door sedan’s front passenger wheel and axle hung limply at a queasy 45 degree angle as its front end faced directlly into two oncoming lanes of snarled traffic competing to merge into the one lane and get to the main island of Alameda on Thursday May 23rd.
The mess, involving hundreds of vehicles, only took one driver to create.
According to APD Lieutenant Alan Kuboyama , a follow up investigation on the Preliminary Report concluded that the driver, heading to Harbor Bay Island approaching the Northwestern end of the bridge, “lost control of the vehicle and drove over the concrete divider” where “ the car continued to proceed forward and struck the guardrail of the bridge (opposite side) and stalled.”
For a car to effectively jump the divider, cross headlong into the two lanes of oncoming traffic and end up in the farthest lane away, is significant as curbs are designed to fend off or repel tires that make contact.
That said, the lane divider at that point has no center guardrail to prevent potential head on collisions as might have occurred in this case.
That his crash did not involve smacking into other vehicles in any of the four lanes of travel or cause other damage to the bridge or road deck and that no one was injured is remarkable.
Traffic ground to a near halt over a mile from the accident scene to as far back as The Martin Luther King Regional Park Sandy Beach Parking lot along Doolittle Drive, and for well over a half mile along Harbor Bay Parkway as westbound traffic from both clogged arteries vied to wend their way across the span.
Cars, trucks and buses crawled and lurched forward, bit by bit, at 1- 3 mph for over an hour and a half after APD motorcycle police arrived somewhere around 4:20 pm and a tow truck arrived over an hour later.
Every foot or two gained produced little satisfaction for frustrated and bewildered drivers stuck in the seemingly eternal jam that offered no immediate way out.
A driver who blocked the intersection and left turn lane from Island Drive onto Robert Davy Junior Drive heard the wrath of one angered motorist’s horn blaring loud blasts for about two minutes, as vehicles crawled forward or remained motionless with every person focused on their own plight.
What would typically be 2-5 minute drive across the bridge from the intersection of Island Drive and Robert Davy Jr Drive, took as much as 35 -40 minutes, and gridlock built during the Friday go home commute.
One driver, who tried, at about 5:40, to make it from the location of Earhart School to get to the main island via Island Drive , to Maitland to Harbor Bay Parkway found that Doolittle was even more backed up than Island Drive.
He opted to go East on Doolittle, take Pardee to Hegenberger and then the Freeway to get easy access via The High Street Bridge, all in a span of about 12 minutes while drivers in the jam just stewed and vented.
A woman who is a regular swimmer at the Harbor Bay Club from 4:30 – 5:45 pm or so remarked that she might as well just stay put at the pool until after 6:00 or 6:30 rather than slog through traffic that moved so glacially.
Only the sight of what appeared to be a yellow tow vehicle on scene at about 5:40 gave a glimmer of promise that eventually the vehicle that caused the mess would be removed.
She decided not to attempt to cross the bridge to drive back home until around 6:45 or later, once traffic thinned out and the damaged car was hauled away.
Given the condition of the right front wheel, it appeared that the driver slammed into the deck level guardrail/ curb of the bridge’s roadway, and then spun out one hundred and eighty degrees before coming a halt just about where the Westbound crossing gate for the drawbridge is located.
Kuboyama added that, “ our Traffic Unit responded and worked with a tow company to re-open the roadway as quickly as they were able. No crime was committed and no arrest was made.”
No estimated speed of the vehicle before the crash nor whether any other factors as distracted driving or avoidance of another vehicle contributed to the mishap.
