Deadly Crash Reminds Neighborhood to Drive Safely

A Sunday afternoon crash at Mission Boulevard and King Street reportedly left an elderly man dead and rattled the nerves of neighbors.

Just before the 4 p.m. collision, a resident said she saw a black truck being driven erractically on Mowry Avenue onto Mission.

The truck rear-ended a vehicle that had stopped to make a turn, causing it to flip over and killing the driver, according to resident Gary Louie, who provided the accompanying photo to Union City Patch.

Barbara Marinelli, who lives on that street, witnessed the whole thing.

"I saw this accident happen from my bonus room window and it was horrible," she wrote. "The green truck was airborne, then bounced around before landing on its roof and coming to a stop at the curb. I was actually physically shaking as I ran downstairs to call 911 and then outside (barefoot) to see if I could help. Sadly, there was nothing I could do but give a statement."

Residents say people often drive recklessly through that intersection.

"The difficult thing is that I see people run red lights all the time!" Marinelli wrote in an email.

Last week, a car barrelled through a red light, she wrote. And a few months ago, she saw two pedestrians run back to the sidewalk.

"I looked to the left on Mission in time to see a large orange Caltrans truck screaming on the brakes and zig-zagging across the intersection on a red," according to Marinelli.

Marinelli wondered if the intersection would be safer as a four-way stop without lights at all.

"I almost feel like the light has become more of a detriment," she wrote. "If there is no light you tend to be very careful about crossing over two lanes of traffic. With a light people assume that if it's green it's OK. I believe the fatalities all happened AFTER the lights were put in."

Louie added he believes there have been four fatalities at that intersection in the 20 years he has lived there.

"I know a number of our neighbors have commented on their own experiences being hit or nearly hit be people racing on Mission Boulevard or just not paying attention and running the red light," Louie wrote in an email. "The speed limit is 50 mph and there is a mild hill coming northbound on Mission, which serves to block the view of the traffic light a few hundred yards before the light and also causes an increased speed as they travel on the downhill side of that slope."

"We tell our kids to wait at least three seconds after our light turns green before they proceed out into the intersection. Even then, it is sometimes hard to see cars coming northbound on Mission."

Kourosh Dinyari, another resident, remembers his own scary moment.

"Once an 18-wheeler zoomed through the intersection and my waiting the yjtrr seconds probably saved me," Dinyari wrote in an email. "The sad thing is that I could see the horror in the driver's eyes as he had realized that the light had turned red too late and knew that with that much mass and speed there was no way he could have stopped and in fact it may have been more dangerous if he had attempted as if the truck had jackknifed it would have probably hit my car that had stopped at East King.

"Maybe increasing the time on the yellow light would give just a few more moments for cars to stop, but we should still not give up the 3 seconds rule."

Have you noticed dangerous driving in this neighborhood? If so, tell us about it in the comments section and what changes you think can be made to make these roads safer.