Why Modesto man blames city after another suspected drunken driver plows into cars
Modesto resident Terry Hopkins says drivers have plowed into his family’s cars parked in front of their East Orangeburg Avenue house about a half dozen times since he bought it in 2006.
The last crash occurred July 11 just before midnight when a suspected drunken driver smashed into Hopkins’ 2011 Toyota Prius and the family’s 2002 Mercedes Benz sports utility vehicle before careening into a neighbor’s yard and coming to an abrupt stop after hitting a tree.
Hopkins says he and his family are not jinxed.
“How can anyone have that kind of bad luck,” he asked. “I really believe it’s scientific. It has to do with the rate of speed, the distance, and the way the street is made.”
Hopkins lives on the 2000 block of East Orangeburg about a tenth of a mile west of Oakdale Road. Orangeburg is two lanes there and shifts slightly a few hundred feet east of his home, and westbound drivers would hit the cars parked along the street if they don’t adjust their path and follow the center of the street.
Hopkins’ theory is that drunk drivers overcorrect twice and end up heading right toward his house, which is on the north side of East Orangeburg. He said they overcorrect when they realize Orangeburg has shifted and end up too close to oncoming traffic. They then overcorrect as they try to get back into their lane.
By the time they have done this, Hopkins theorizes, they are on course to smash into his family’s vehicles. He said most of the drivers who have hit his and other family members’ vehicles were intoxicated.
“It’s not safe,” he said. “Someone is going to get killed.”
Hopkins, 55, is in the process of retaining a lawyer and plans on asking the city to fix the street and compensate him for the full value of his Prius and Mercedes SUV. He said both vehicles were totaled, and insurance won’t cover the full cost of what they were worth.
The Prius was Hopkins’ commuter car, which he drove to and from his job in the Bay Area. He said he just spent $5,000 for a new motor and said his insurance company will probably pay him $3,500 for the car.
Modesto Police Department spokeswoman Sharon Bear confirmed officers cited the driver on suspicion of DUI. Hopkins said he believes having three bars nearby does not help.
This is not the first time Hopkins has raised this issue with the city. He did so in 2008 after drivers hit his and other family members’ vehicles several times over about a couple of years. He said after speaking at a City Council meeting, the city painted white stripes along Orangeburg between the traffic lanes and where cars park along the street.
He said this time the city should consider at the very least putting reflectors along the street to help drivers at night. Hopkins said he and his family went years without an accident until a couple of years ago when a 90-year-old woman driving a circa 1970 Mustang in pristine condition sideswiped the family’s van.
“She was just elderly and lost a little control,” he said. “To me, that’s an everyday accident.”
He said he got her a chair and water as she sat in the shade of his yard and waited for the tow truck driver. But the July 11 accident brought back the bad memories of the drunken drivers who had damaged his and other family members’ vehicles.
City spokesman Thomas Reeves said that section of East Orangeburg Avenue is busy, averaging 10,882 cars in both directions on a typical weekday. He said there were five traffic accidents from 2015 to 2017
“We’re very aware of the incidents that have occurred there,” Reeves said.
But he said there was no pattern to the accidents to suggest something is wrong with the road. He said two accidents involved drunken drivers, two were head-on crashes and one happened when a driver broadsided a vehicle.
Reeves said one traffic accident is too many but five is not unusual for that section of Orangeburg. But he said the city is open to ways to make the road safer and as a result of the most recent accident it will repaint the white stripes along the street and increase their width from 4 to 6 inches.
Hopkins is not the only resident along that stretch of Orangeburg who has had a parked car smashed up by a driver. A husband and wife who live nearby said about three years ago a drunken driver smashed into one of their cars parked along the street with such force that the parked car then plowed into the two vehicles in their driveway.
The couple asked that their names not be used but agreed the road’s alignment needs to be addressed and having bars nearby is not good. And motorists drive too fast. The speed limit along Orangeburg there is 30 mph, but the wife said motorists blow by at 45 or 50 mph and more traffic enforcement would curb the speeders.
“They treat it like a racetrack,” she said about the drivers.
This story was originally published July 18, 2019 at 10:48 AM.
