Correction
Wrong driver faulted
in report
A
report of a fatal highway accident that appeared in the June 22, 2007, issue of
the Valley Journal misstated the at-fault determination of the California
Highway Patrol officers who investigated the accident.
The
collision, which occurred shortly after 8 a.m. on June 16, 2007, on Highway 154
near San Lucas Ranch, claimed the lives of both of the drivers involved,
Jeannie Guzman, 60, of Oxnard and Casey Landi, 20, of
Santa Barbara. Injured in the accident was Jose Ledesma,
65, of Oxnard, who was a passenger in Guzman’s Ford F-150 pickup.
The
CHP’s 11-page traffic collision report, which lists three persons as preparers,
confuses the two drivers at one point. The drivers are assigned numbers, P-1
and P-2, but both drivers’ names are associated with the P-1 designation on
different pages of the report, and P1 was identified as the at-fault driver on
the final page of the report, which may have contributed to confusion in the
initial Valley Journal story.
The
final version of the report includes an addendum that corrects the at-fault
finding, naming P-2, Landi, whose
Chevrolet Suburban crossed the double yellow line and struck Guzman’s vehicle
head-on. It also includes data from a toxicology report stating that Landi’s blood alcohol content that morning was 0.13
percent, well above the so-called legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Although Landi was eventually
identified as the at-fault driver, and alcohol was determined to be the leading
factor in causing the accident, the CHP investigation concluded from an
interview with Ledesma that Guzman was speeding at
the time of the accident.