The double-decker tractor trailer car hauler lost control at Foothill Boulevard and Angeles Crest Highway La Canada Flintridge, CA shortly before 6 p.m. and plowed into a bookstore whose patrons had fled. Momentum carried the truck -- loaded with several vehicles -- into a nail parlor, pinning the owner. (Google map - Link)
The intersection was the scene of a similar accident Sept. 5, when a truck from Idaho carrying 78,000 pounds of onions lost its brakes coming down the steep incline from the San Gabriel Mountains
Update: Trucker arrested in deadly crash - Marcos Costa, 43, was taken into custody on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, said Lt. Greg Sisneros of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Sisneros did not know where Costa lives but said he was a licensed Florida truck driver.
Update: Two Dead, 12 injured.
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2 killed as truck collides with cars, slams into bookstore
A car-hauling truck collided with several vehicles Wednesday night before slamming into a bookstore in La Cañada Flintridge, authorities said.
Los Angeles County Fire Department officials said they have reports of two fatalities and several injuries.
The accident occurred just before 6 p.m. near the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Angeles Crest Highway.
Fire Department spokesman Art Marrujo said it was not immediately clear whether the victims were in the bookstore or in the cars involved in the accident.
Fire officials pulled victims out of cars, and television news footage showed the truck embedded in the front of the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House.
Updated, 6:36 p.m.: Officials said there are five injured people, including one who was in the bookstore.
Lynn Tran, manager of a nearby gourmet wine and spirit store, said she and other employees were stocking shelves when they heard a loud bang.
"We heard a noise that sounded like an earthquake," she said. "It shook a little bit."
Updated, 6:52 p.m.: Brandi Sjostrom, a waitress at Hill St. Cafe, a few doors away from the crash, provided this description: "I heard the bus braking really hard and everyone ran out. The bus almost came up on our curb. This really small red car was completely crushed. It was pretty awful. I've never seen anything like that. I was pretty shaken up." Sjostrom said a semi-tractor trailer lost its brakes and punched through the restaurant's back wall last year.
Road accidents can be checked if Government takes preventive measures to check drunk driving by levying heavy penalties in cash with prosecution. It is noted that at night time the traffic police who themselves take alcohol fail to discharge their duty with due diligence resulting in overspending and rash driving.
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