Neighbors in East County are urging city leaders to take action on what’s been a deadly stretch of road. Their concerns are rising to the surface again after an early morning crash off Jamacha Road. NBC 7’s Omari Fleming has the story.
A sleeping couple was injured when a car came crashing through the bedroom wall of their El Cajon home early Tuesday, officials said.
A speeding vehicle lost control on a curve along Jamacha Road shortly after 2 a.m., smashing its way into the couple's bedroom, El Cajon police said. When first responders arrived, the vehicle was about 80% embedded into the home.
The man and woman were transported to a nearby hospital with serious and minor injuries, respectively. A building inspector determined their home was not safe to live in, El Cajon police said.
The driver, a 26-year-old man conducted a series of sobriety tests at the scene and was subsequently released, police said. He was uninjured.
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Speed on the curvy roadway was determined to be the cause of the crash.
Safety concerns over stretch of road in El Cajon after car crashes into home
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Tuesday's crash renewed fears for neighbors, who are now urging city leaders to take action on the stretch of road that some call the "death curve."
"There are times where I ran this hill, and I've almost gotten hit," neighbor Laurie Heyder told NBC 7.
Heyder is not alone in her concern about cars speeding up and down Jamacha Road. Jalen Payne and his family showed NBC 7 pictures of a BMW that was racing up the road over the summer. It lost control and flipped over onto his family's property near Vista Del Valle Boulevard.
“One of these times, they’re going to come too far into the line, they’re going to kill one of our animals. They’re going to probably drive into our property line and one of us is going to get hurt," Payne said. "This alone, this street, this corner right here, we call 'death corner.' Some of the locals around here because it's so often it happens. It's crashes every couple months."
According to data from UC Berkeley's Transportation Injury Mapping System — known as TIMS — there have been multiple crashes, including at least one fatal, at the intersection of Jamacha Road and Vista Del Valle Boulevard.
Just two blocks north, near Gustavo Street, where Tuesday's crash happened, TIMS data shows a total of 18 crashes over 10 years.
"Five or six years ago, flipped in front of our house, and our grandson was asleep in the room. Ever since then, you go to bed praying," said Craig Bell, who lives next door from the crash site.
Bell and other neighbors are thankful for the traffic light at Gustavo Street, but they're hoping for another one to slow drivers who are racing around the blind Jamacha Road curves.
The city told NBC 7 it plans to analyze the cause of Tuesday's accident, as well as previous crashes and speed data in the area. Based on what it finds, changes could be recommended. In the meantime, the city plans to install a speed feedback sign.
City News Service contributed to this report.
