California Highway Patrol

What Should Have Been Done:

When called to the scene of a fatal accident, the California Highway Patrol should do a thorough investigation. They should interview all witnesses, examine the vehicle for faulty equipment, follow up by interviewing the passenger or passengers in the vehicle, and report their findings in a complete report. If additional information is later discovered that information should be made part of the report. The investigating officer should be willing to talk to the parents of the victim to answer any questions they have.

The Reality:

The CHP officer, when called to the scene of the accident that killed our son, did a superficial investigation. There was no investigation of the vehicle, other than to simply look at it. He overlooked the fact that the vehicle itself may have been the main cause of the accident. We sent photos of the dune buggy to three separate Accident Reconstruction Experts, who after viewing the pictures taken by the CHP officer, stated that the vehicle had been modified and was probably very unstable. They strongly suspected this vehicle had special handling characteristics that would make normal maneuvers dangerous, especially for an untrained driver. Training and helmets should have been required for anyone driving a vehicle of this type. It is inconceivable to us that the California Highway Patrol, went to a work site where dangerous vehicles were being operated and found, without inspecting the vehicle involved, the driver totally at fault.

The CHP officer interviewed only four people. One of them did not even see the accident happen. The passenger of the vehicle (the person with the most knowledge about the accident) was only asked a couple of questions and no follow up interview with the passenger was ever done. The completed report was very shallow with only the bare minimum of information.

CHP Officer, C. Avila, wrote up the fatal accident report but we were never allowed to ask him questions, despite several attempts by us to talk to him. We were only allowed to talk to a supervisor, CHP Sgt. Wheeler. He defended his officer's report as a complete and thorough report. He showed no concern that Universal/MCA personnel tampered with the scene of the accident by removing cameras from the vehicle before the officer arrived. The Accident Report was never changed to reflect the fact that the cameras were removed before CHP arrived on the scene and no follow-up investigation was ever done. Sgt. Wheeler's remark to us, upon hearing cameras and other things were removed before CHP arrived, "These items wouldn't have mattered, they didn't cause the accident." How did he determine this without any investigation or inspection of the vehicle?

Universal was allowed to remove the vehicle and from the scene and put it in storage on their property, not impounded like most vehicles involved in a fatal accident.

So the California Highway Patrol did absolutely the least amount required of them and what they did was incomplete and superficial. In other words they basically did absolutely nothing.

Return to The Investigation page.