'BLOOD ALLEY' CRASH RESULTS IN LAWSUIT.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PEARBLOSSOM - A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed by the family of a 69-year-old Littlerock man who died from injuries suffered in a crash last year on Pearblossom Highway.

The family of Dino Amici claims in the lawsuit that Caltrans knew previously that the area of Highway 138 where the crash occurred was dangerous but did nothing to remedy the situation.

``(Highway) 138 has always been the death highway,'' said Robert Parris, the Amici family attorney. ``Unfortunately, Caltrans has not taken the necessary action to make 138 a four-lane roadway with center medians and shoulder areas that would resolve most of the problems they are having out there.''

The lawsuit filed June 24 names as defendants the state of California; Antonio Ramos, the driver of the tractor-trailer rig that collided with Amici's truck; and the company that Ramos was working for, court records show.

Ramos was working for tree-trimming company Tip Top Arborists as a commercial truck driver, the lawsuit said. Parris said Ramos was not licensed to drive the truck he was driving and that the truck did not have any safety chains, breakaway brakes were not connected to the trailer, and there was no electric brake control.

Caltrans officials and representatives from Tip Top could not be reached Friday for comment.

Ramos was driving east on Highway 138, near 82nd Street East, on July 9, 2001, when he noticed traffic stopped for a red light and stepped on his brakes in an attempt to avoid a stopped vehicle, California Highway Patrol officers said.

``The trailer ... was not slowing at the same rate of the tractor. ... The trailer started to swing out to the side and entered the westbound traffic lanes and collided'' with the 1997 Toyota Tacoma pickup driven by Amici, CHP Officer Rusty Moore said.

Amici suffered cuts to his arms, a leg and the left side of his chest and also complained of chest pains, Moore said. He was flown to Antelope Valley Hospital, where he died Aug. 4, 2001, from his injuries.

Amici, who was retired, was on his way to go fishing, Parris said.

``He had a son who was completely disabled, who is in his 40s, who he has supported the entire time. He was raising a grandchild with his wife, Betty, and has three daughters. He was a real good guy,'' Parris said.

``Prior to July 9, 2001, the state knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that an extremely dangerous condition existed on (Highway 138) in the area where the subject collision occurred in that said roadway was not separated by a physical barrier in the median at any point along the roadway,'' the lawsuit said.

``Due to the traffic pattern on said roadway, the design of said roadway and the existence of prior similar incidents, it was foreseeable that traffic collisions would occur in the westbound lanes of said roadway, causing eastbound vehicles to be pushed, driven, or directed into the opposite-bound roadway lanes, creating an unreasonable risk of high-speed, subsequent collisions with opposing traffic,'' the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit claims that the state negligently failed to design or construct a median barrier, failed to construct an adequate number of lanes, and failed to provide roadway shoulders of sufficient width ``despite its knowledge that the absence of these safety requirements created a foreseeable risk of injury to drivers traveling along that portion'' of the highway, the lawsuit said.

``The state further failed to remedy or warn of the existence of the dangerous condition despite having been aware of the existence of the aforementioned dangerous condition for a sufficient amount of time prior to the collision to have remedied and or warned of the existence of said dangerous condition,'' the lawsuit said.

Dubbed ``Blood Alley'' by Antelope Valley residents, Highway 138 had what a state study noted was a higher-than-average number of fatal crashes over a five-year period. The crashes were attributed to the highway's rolling profile and lack of passing opportunities for motorists.

The ``twin bridges'' section of the highway east of Pearblossom near 165th Street East has been the scene of numerous crashes, including ones that killed three people in 1995, one man in 1999 and a man and a woman in 2000.

The twin bridges are about nine miles east of where the Amici accident occurred.

In March, the state Department of Transportation agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from the triple fatality in 1995. The plaintiffs in that case claimed that Caltrans previously knew that the twin bridges area was dangerous but did nothing to correct the problem.

The latest Highway 138 fatality occurred in February when a Hesperia man drove his car into the side of a jackknifed tractor-trailer rig blocking a dark section of the roadway.