The families of hit and run victims in Cathedral City and their attorneys just want answers. How can a bicyclist be hit by a hit and run vehicle, then a second pedestrian be hit by the same vehicle just moments later, then hit a second time by a paramedics vehicle transporting the first victim, and then hit yet by yet a third hit and run vehicle? These deaths in October 2014 would be just two in a string of recent hit and run wrongful deaths in the Coachella Valley.
Ramon Road in Palm Springs, Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage
Ramon Road is an extremely busy street in the city of Cathedral City in the heart of the Coachella Valley, day or night. It runs at one end from Rancho Mirage, through Cathedral City and finally ends in Palm Springs or vice versa, depending on your direction of travel.
Cathedral City is only six miles from Palm Springs and eighteen miles from the site of the Coachella Music Festival. Ramon Road has crosswalks but they are far between. Customers of businesses frequently jaywalk to cross Ramon Road with their purchases.
Numerous cameras are on the street, at intersections, in store fronts and in at least one inst
ance, the camera at a private home captured hit and run accidents on film. Vexing to the police, the photos have been of insufficient clarity and from too far of a distance for the license plates of hit and run vehicles in recent accidents to be read.
A Rash of Pedestrian Hit and Run Accidents and Fatalities on or near Ramon Road in Cathedral City
In 2013, Cathedral City had five pedestrian deaths and 14 pedestrian injuries. Indio had four pedestrian deaths and nineteen pedestrian injuries. Palm Springs had two pedestrian deaths and thirteen pedestrian injuries. In 2014, Palm Springs has had at least one pedestrian death and sixteen pedestrian injuries.
In October and November of 2013, Cathedral City had four car vs. pedestrian accidents with no deaths. However, just in October and November of 2014, Cathedral City had three such collisions with two deaths.
Now, just in the tragic period of three months in late 2014, four pedestrians have been killed and four seriously injured in the Coachella Valley. Six of the eight were in Cathedral City. Three of the four fatal collisions involved transients. The first fatality was a hit and run in Cathedral City. The second was in Indio. The third was a hit and run in Cathedral City.
In November, a fourth pedestrian was killed in Cathedral City. While not in a marked crosswalk, he was in an intersection and by law, it’s legal for pedestrians to cross at any intersection. As far as the police are concerned, any intersection constitutes a crosswalk.
In between those four pedestrian deaths, a badly injured lady was also hit in Cathedral City by two vehicles. The first was a hit and run. The driver of the second vehicle stopped and cooperated with police.
Ramon Road Has Become A Death Trap for Pedestrians
Now, yet another pedestrian has been killed, also on Ramon Road in Palm Springs, just miles down the same street from where the incident occurred in which the two accident victims were stuck and killed by the same vehicle and then the second victim was stuck by a paramedics vehicle and by yet a third hit and run vehicle. This victim was the third resident of the same mobile home park in the past four years to be hit and killed attempting to cross the street.
And yet again on Ramon Road in November 2014, another pedestrian was stuck while crossing Ramon Road with a walker. This pedestrian at least did not suffer life threatening injuries.
Parents everywhere, but particularly those who have children who play in this area need to ensure that their children are aware of the dangers while walking or riding their bikes.
How Can This Be Happening?
The families of victims and residents in the Coachella Valley, especially those in Cathedral City and Palm Springs are asking themselves, how can this be happening?
A Common factor in many of the tragic deaths of pedestrians in the Coachella Valley has been the following scenario. It’s dark, the pedestrian doesn’t want to take the time to walk further down the road to a stop light. They decide to take a chance and cross a busy street and the unthinkable happens. Some of the victims have been transients but as one family stated, just because their brother and uncle chose not to live with them, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t loved or cared for.
Nationally, pedestrian fatalities have increased every year since 2009. Pedestrians may be forgetting what they learned as children, to look both ways before crossing a street. Some fail to wear light or reflective clothing when doing so. Others are hit by distracted drivers. But what is most disconcerting of all, has been the number of drivers who have failed to stop and render aid after running into a pedestrian and who have taken off from the scenes of their accidents before help or the police arrive.
There are heartbroken families whenever a pedestrian or other victim is seriously or fatally injured in a vehicle accident. Their grief is compounded when the accident is caused by the driver of a hit and run vehicle.
This rash of pedestrian deaths, serious injuries and hit and run wrongful deaths needs to come to an end before any additional lives are lost.
If you need a personal injury lawyer for a hit and run accident in Cathedral City, or an injury you received in a car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle or pedestrian accident in Palm Springs, Palm Desert, any other city within the Coachella Valley, Orange County, or anywhere on the coast of California, inland or in the desert, call Attorney Sebastian Gibson at (760) 776-1810 or toll free at (855) WHAT NOW. Put the experience of our law firm on your side and protect your rights.
