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
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.
