Fatal O.C. Crash Renews Toll-Road Speeding Worry

Marco Relis, 16, was driving his best friend home after an evening of playing video games. Behind the wheel of his new blue Subaru--a present on his 16th birthday three weeks ago--Relis sped along the northbound lanes of the San Joaquin Hills toll road.

Rogelio Uribe, a 43-year-old restaurant cook, drove in the southbound lanes on his way to the store. Beside him in the car were his 6-year-old son, Cristian, and the child’s mother, Magdelena Ramirez Flores, 28.

It was just after 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday night when these two strangers’ lives collided in a grisly crash that left three people dead, the worst accident in the short history of Orange County’s toll road system.

The accident has renewed concerns about rampant speeding on the toll roads, which are known for wide-open lanes and congestion-free travel for those willing to pay the price. In recent months, the California Highway Patrol and Caltrans have stepped up enforcement of speed limits along the roads, posting additional signs and using airplanes to monitor speeds.

“It’s a big concern of ours,” Caltrans spokeswoman Rose Orem said, noting that the relative scarcity of cars on the roads encourages drivers to pick up speed. “Before you realize it, you are easily going 75, 80, 85 mph. . . . Speeding has been a problem.”

Investigators are still trying to determine exactly how fast Relis was traveling but said it was well over the posted 65-mph speed limit.

They said the collision happened in a matter of seconds. Relis lost control of his car. Skid marks stretched for 50 yards on the pavement. The car then spun over the grass median for nearly 100 yards before slamming into Uribe’s red Ford Tempo in the oncoming lane.

When it was all over, the two cars came to a stop just under a 65-mph speed limit sign, the road littered with broken glass and metal debris.

Relis was dead. Flores and her child were dead. Relis’ best friend, David Nguyen, 15, was seriously injured. And Uribe was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo in serious condition. Both remained hospitalized Thursday. All five were wearing seat belts, and the air bags in the Subaru deployed.

“Relis was traveling at a high rate of speed, and he lost control,” said CHP spokeswoman Joani Rivas. “He probably didn’t have much time to react.”

For grieving family and friends, the deaths seemed impossible to understand. Fausto Relis, 42, sobbed Thursday for the son he lost. He cried also for the people his son struck.

“I feel so bad for that family,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I wish I could bring them back. I feel so sorry for them.”

Marco Relis, a sophomore at San Clemente High School, wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up, his father said. Cars and racing were his passions.

Family members described 6-year-old Cristian as a smiling, happy boy who was well-liked in his kindergarten class at San Juan Elementary School.

Cristian’s teacher, Laura Gardner, was so distraught over his death that she left school after hearing the news, said Principal Aida Nunez. Nunez said Cristian and his mother, Flores, were familiar faces at the school.

Flores volunteered in her son’s kindergarten classroom several days a week in addition to working at a fast-food restaurant located blocks from the school. She and her son were inseparable, said Flores’ friend Laura Santamaria.

“That’s why I gave thanks for God that they went together,” she said. “Because I don’t know what she would have done without him.”

Santamaria said friends planned to collect enough money to send Flores and Cristian back to Mexico to be buried.

Uribe’s daughter, Rosario, 14, said she last saw Cristian and her father Wednesday evening as they were about to run some errands. Cristian was in the back seat laughing.

“He was always laughing. That’s how I will always remember him,” she said.

She and other family members and co-workers described Uribe as a hard-working man who juggled jobs as a cook in two Mexican restaurants and dreamed of one day opening his own.

“I don’t know what will happen next,” said his wife, Felicita Uribe, 42. “But I’ll wait for him.”

For Relis’ family the waiting is over.

The boy’s father said his son’s last words to him were just normal, everyday conversation.

“He said to me, ‘I’m just going to take David home,’ and I said, ‘Come back so we can go to dinner,’ ” said Relis, a lifelong Orange County resident and owner of his own computer business.

When time passed and he did not hear from Marco, Relis grew worried and tried to reach him.

“I started calling him on his car phone. Obviously there was no answer,” he said.

In a call to David Nguyen’s father he learned there had been a wreck. Nguyen was at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center, but there was no word about Marco.

Panicked, he called area hospitals. When he could not find his son, he got into his car and drove to the accident scene.

There he saw the caved-in car that had been his son’s prized possession.

“As I got closer to the car, his body was covered by a tarp and they wouldn’t let me see him. I couldn’t even give him his last rites,” he said, sobbing. “I told them, ‘That’s my son’s car.’ They told me, ‘I’m really sorry to tell you that your son died.’ ”

The crash Wednesday marks the second fatal accident on the 2-year-old toll road, the county’s oldest. Officials said they decided to increase patrols after reports from CHP officers and motorists of chronic speeding. Officers said it’s not uncommon to see cars doing 90 and even 100 mph along the route.

Caltrans officials said it’s difficult to compare the road’s safety to that of other major highways because terrain and traffic volume differ. Overall, they consider the road safe.

Still, it has a history of accidents in the rain because of problems with drainage. The northbound lanes where Wednesday’s accident began were scheduled to be repaved last fall. But work was postponed until spring because of delays and bad weather. The southbound lanes have already been resurfaced.

Wednesday night, conditions on the road were dry and clear, said Orem, the Caltrans spokeswoman. She added there was no indication that the road’s surface played any role in the accident.

Unlike most highway medians in Orange County, the median Relis crossed had no concrete barrier or metal railing. But Caltrans officials said such a barrier is not required because the median is so wide, 88 feet.

Family friends who have seen pictures of the accident scene said it was a wonder anyone in either car was still alive.

As Fred Kardous, Uribe’s boss at El Camino Taco in San Juan Capistrano, said: “How can you survive a crash like that?”

Times staff writer Liz Seymour and correspondents Crystal Carreon and Chris Ceballos contributed to this report.

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How the Accident Happened

California Highway Patrol investigators continued Thursday to reconstruct a deadly crash on the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor that left three dead and two injured.

1) Speeding Subaru loses control, skids off road

2) Subaru driver apparently overcompensates, car spins 180 degrees

3) Ford broadsides Subaru, striking driver’s side

Subaru: Driver killed, passenger injured

Ford: Driver injured, two passengers killed

Subaru skids approximately 450 feet

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times