Sheriff’s Department Says CHP Data Ranks PCH Death Toll High

Coronor’s Toxicology Report in Last Month’s Teen Fatality Says Alcohol Was Primary Factor

BY HANS LAETZ

Malibu’s roads are the deadliest among similarly sized cities in California, according to a California Highway Patrol breakdown released recently.
That news came the same week as an autopsy report that showed a blood alcohol content of .18 for the Conejo Valley 17-year-old who was killed in a single-vehicle rollover crash in western Malibu April 9.
Cody James Murphy, 17, and four friends had gone to Hollywood and Santa Monica on a school night, and were heading home to Newbury Park via Malibu after partying. They had finished off a large bottle of Jägermeister, a potent herbal liqueur heavily marketed to young people.
That blood-alcohol level was “an extremely high level of intoxication for a teenager, most of whom would have passed out before reaching it,” said Sgt. Philip Brooks at the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station. “It shows that this young man had built up a tolerance for alcohol.”
The April 9 fatality is perhaps typical of those that have elevated Malibu to the number one ranking for the number of people killed in traffic crashes among California cities with between 10,000 and 25,000 residents, Brooks said.
“People passing through seems to be the major problem,” he said, as Malibu’s few bars have generated some arrests but no drunken driving fatalities.
Malibu is also number one for the number of victims killed or hurt in crashes caused by young adults who had been drinking, and ranks just behind a central California farming town for the largest number of overall alcohol-related crashes.
The statistics were generated by the CHP from 2005 data, and are based on the number of vehicle-miles traveled. And Brooks notes that Malibu ranks very high “because nearly every mile traveled in Malibu is on a major highway, and there is comparatively little city street mileage here.”
Last month’s wreck’s autopsy results showed Murphy had a trace amount of marijuana residue in his blood as the Subaru he was driving with four friends onboard cartwheeled down Pacific Coast Highway west of Trancas Canyon Road late in the night.
A 17-year-old girl in the back seat, who received what were described as severe brain injuries, was released from UCLA Hospital earlier this month. Brooks said doctors have told sheriff’s investigators the girl “has no lasting or permanent damage other than a scar on her skull.” Her name has not been released.
Witnesses said the girl had just finished vomiting out the car’s window, and hit her head against the car door repeatedly as Murphy lost control at 90 miles an hour and the car went up an embankment and rolled end-over-end.
“That may have been why her injuries were so severe,” Brooks said.
Two other juvenile boys in the back seat both broke their hips. A front seat passenger escaped with a cut head, only he and Murphy had been wearing seat belts.
Because the only possible criminal defendant in the crash is dead, Brooks said the case is closed. “There is no way to prove who furnished the alcohol or marijuana to the driver,” Brooks said.
Sheriff’s deputies already expend considerable efforts patrolling PCH for drunk drivers, and have some of the highest arrest rates in the county. But residents and city officials have chafed at other enforcement efforts.
A routine weekend DUI roadblock turned ugly last spring when residents barraged city officials with late-night phone calls about a traffic backup, which turned out to have been caused by malfunctioning traffic signals right next to the traffic stop. City officials called the sheriff’s headquarters at 8 p.m. and demanded that the blockade be removed.
Brooks, the longtime traffic office head at the local sheriff’s station, noted that graduation and prom season is an especially hazardous time for teen drinking and crashes.
“Parents need to be aware there is a strong possibility their children may either consume alcohol or be with other kids who do,” Brooks said. “Children should have a complete understanding that they are not to get into a car under those conditions, and parents should have a contract that they will come and pick up the teen if the circumstances warrant it, no questions asked,” he said.
The wrecked Subaru Impreza is being obtained by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department for use as a trailerable exhibit to take to high schools at graduation time, Brooks said.