Two children among 4 dead in Calif. head-on car collision

The scene of a car crash in northern California that killed four, including 2 children. / KOVR

SACRAMENTO, Calif. Two children were among four people killed when a car collided with a minivan on a rural Northern California highway, authorities said.

The wreck came as a Toyota Prius crossed the center line on Highway 50 near Placerville on Saturday night and struck a Toyota Sienna minivan "broadside," said California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer John Frizzell. The crash also left five people injured.

Three people in the Prius — a 39-year-old man driving the car, a woman and a child — were killed in the crash, Frizzell said. Another child in the car suffered moderate injuries. Three of the victims who died lived in the San Francisco Bay area. They were pronounced dead at the scene.

Of the five people in the minivan, a 4-year-old girl was killed, Frizzell said. She died after being taken to a hospital. The four others — the 35-year-old female driver, a 51-year-old man and two 1-year-olds suffered minor to moderate injuries. By late Sunday afternoon no names had been released.

Weather conditions at the time of the crash were clear.

"We don't know what caused the Prius to cross into oncoming traffic," Frizzell said Sunday. "There's an infinite number of possibilities."

The investigation is particularly difficult because there were no witnesses, police told CBS Sacramento affiliate KOVR-TV.

"It was an unwitnessed accident. We don't have anybody who actually saw it happen," said Sgt. Jim Byers of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators have pulled computers from both vehicles that would indicate how fast they were going at the time of the crash, but collecting that information would probably take days, Frizzell said.

The highway where the crash took place is just outside of Placerville, about 45 miles east of Sacramento. The highway has two lanes, with minor to moderate curves, and with a speed limit of 65 miles per hour, Frizzell said.

[JackJuggler]

As to why the Prius crossed the center line on a two-lane rural road, it is not unusual to see drivers take a short cut across the center line in a curve to the left. Most drivers seem to consider this routine. It surprises me that there is no criticism of this in the media. It should be in the same category with drunk driving and speeding. I sometimes have to flash my headlights to get the oncoming car back into its own lane. Thank you. James Michael Smith.