Two people were killed and another driver was injured in a collision at a Fountain Valley intersection in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 3, according to police.
Officers responded to the intersection of Slater Avenue and Bushard Street at approximately 4:36 a.m. There they found a silver Ford Flex and a silver Nissan Kicks that had collided, with both vehicles coming to rest on the northeast corner of the intersection.
According to preliminary findings released by police, the Nissan Kicks had been traveling eastbound on Slater Avenue while the Ford Flex was heading northbound on Bushard Street when the crash occurred.
The Nissan carried a female driver and a male passenger, both of whom were pronounced dead at the scene. The Ford Flex was occupied by a male driver who suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital.
Authorities said the cause of the collision remains under investigation, and it is not yet known whether impairment played a role. The names of the deceased have not been released pending notification of family members. No arrests or criminal charges have been announced.
Investigators examining a fatal crash of this kind typically review traffic signal timing data, event data recorders, vehicle speeds, witness statements, surveillance video, cellphone records and toxicology results before determining whether a driver violated traffic laws. Depending on those findings, charges in such cases can range from misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter to felony gross vehicular manslaughter, though police have reported no evidence of impairment or criminal conduct so far.
The crash underscores a persistent national safety problem. Federal highway safety data indicates that roughly half of all U.S. traffic crashes resulting in injuries or deaths occur at or near intersections, which account for thousands of fatalities and hundreds of thousands of injuries each year. Safety experts note that side-impact collisions are especially dangerous because occupants have less protection than in frontal impacts, and they urge drivers to slow down near signalized intersections, check both directions before proceeding on a green light and use extra caution during overnight and early-morning hours.
In Orange County, heavily traveled corridors such as Beach Boulevard, Harbor Boulevard, Euclid Street, Brookhurst Street, Chapman Avenue and Slater Avenue frequently account for a disproportionate share of serious and fatal collisions, according to the source report.
Witnesses to the Fountain Valley crash are urged to contact the Fountain Valley Police Department Traffic Bureau regarding investigation DR# 26-36679.
