Two Killed in Goleta DUI Traffic Collision

Thanks, Andrew !

Great report!

Thanks Andrew, you’re the only one to report anything on this so far. Checked all the other usual news sites and it’s crickets.

Unbelievable.

Thanks for reporting Andrew. Let me tell you all, Cathedral Oaks, I ride it on my road bike during my lunch hour rides & during the day, it's kind of sketchy, but once it's dark... DANGEROUS AF!
The area this happened at, kind of curvy, people drag racing to get past the light on Cambridge. Add alcohol to the mix & it's a definite disaster.

Got home at Cathedral Oaks.. 10:45pm still a mess. It's an awful scene even in the dark. It's amazing how far apart the cars and trucks are from each other. At least two were parked and pushed on to properties Now Almost an hour later and no clean up in sight.This road super dangerous to cross anytime of day.. bit of a blind spot getting out of side streets where I live Red mustang tangled mess. Very sad for families. Luckily most folx round here already in their homes by 730. Thank you to first responders out there doing their work. People Slow Down.

There have been far too many fatal accidents on Cathedral Oaks in the past few years. It's time to do something. More stop signs, lower the speed limit, more cops patrolling maybe? People drive nuts on this road and add to that, groups of selfish cyclists refusing to ride single file, causing cars to swerve and cross the yellow line. I've seen a lot of near misses in my 3x daily drives between Sandpiper and Kellogg! Too many close calls and too many deaths. Goleta needs to address this.

40 mph Cathedral Oaks road is not the problem. Of all the accidents most are from excessive speed, racing or under the influence. Put the blame where it belongs. I have no Idea who was involved, I would put money on entitled brats raised with no sense of responsibility.

The speed limit could have been 25 in that section and it would not have prevented those deaths.

On any given day, I witness people speeding on both Cathedral Oaks and Fairview Avenue, and running stoplights at the Fairview Avenue/Berkeley Road and Cambridge Drive/Stow Canyon intersections. It's scary, for sure, and sickening to think that innocent people can have their lives destroyed in a matter of seconds by careless aholes.

W/ all due rspect to the gravity of this incident & the lives lost, I gotta say the following. You can implement all the speed limits, stop signs, traffic lights, whatever other engineering control you wanna put in, but drunk drivers, they don't care about any of that. Add to that a "seasoned veteran" w/ previous DUI's & man, they get even more vehicularly belligerent.
Personally, I'm of the persuasion that refuses to even as much as look @ car keys if I even just had a drop of alcohol, just the way my brain's wired, doesn't make me better or worse than anybody here.
But some folks, 1 leads to 2, leads to 4, leads to more & off they go. Worst part is there's NOTHING you can say to such an individual, they'll justify their choice to drive & like I said above, all the engineering controls in the world ain't gonna stop the antics that ensue.
Now it comes down to administrative controls, also known as the law. This guy, 31 years old, 2 prior DUI's & now facing murder charges for the 3rd drunk driving incident.
I agree that some seem to think that Cathedral Oaks is a "101 alternative" & all, but the fact to this matter & in many other such incidents on that road always circle back to alcohol involved incident(s).
Remember the couple that got mowed down by the hit & run driver a while back? That's 1 of the most recent & horrible incidents on Cathedral Oaks & this was more like by Winchester Canyon.
I've lost too many friends & family, both, as victims to drunk drivers & as drunk drivers, to just let this slide. Let's put the effect to the cause & the cause was alcohol, the effect was 3 lives destroyed, 2 of those permanently. This really sucks.

I don't mind having the highest prison population in the world. We uniquely also have the most freedom to act for the greater good, or to act crazy. When crazy is against the law, then off to the slammer. No skin off my nose. No more supremely dangerous bad actors being kept out of prison - the sooner and the more the merrier. It is all about choice ultimately. And life behind bars is a choice. Provide the hots and cots, because it is a lot cheaper than letting lawless crazy harm others.

This is so sad....
I will say, the DA'S, office, and the Judges, take this very seriously....
I think 1st offense, not harming anyone, is about 10 thousand dollars...plus loss of license, work, mandatory classes, etc.
He will probably not be out of jail for a long time...

At least with the latest update we now know that the "small dog" is OK!!! Good to know that it's survived this drunk, for now...

This isn't a traffic engineering problem, but a DUI problem.

Alright, long rant, but hey, seen others do it, why not? As a IV resident of 35 years it baffles me that given the alcohol consumption rate here, the number of DUI incidents are low. The reasons being that people don't drive around to get from party to party, they walk, skateboard, bike or scooter.
However, there's the "sophisticates" that do go downtown SB for the nightlife which usually involves a lot of drinking & for that, I gotta say, there's a lot of choices such as the Party Bus, Uber & Lyft, don't know if Bill's Bus is still in service though.
But another factor to the low DUI rate here in IV is something that happens on Los Carneros every once in a while & that's those DUI checkpoints.
Now, I gotta point out something about those Los Carneros checkpoints, most of the DUI's caught DON'T live in IV, they're from out of the area & they've already been drinking before coming into the area.
1 thing those checkpoints have done is thwart the drink & drive behavior & I gotta cite that as most likely a reason for the fact that we don't get many DUI incidents here in IV.
W/ all that said, we've seen that these fatal accidents on Cathedral Oaks, most involve alcohol related behaviors & maybe having more of a police presence on that road is gonna be a necessity.
I know, it's kind of rural, boring to patrol, but it's also a known route for drunk drivers to take to avoid police presence on the more traveled roads.
I guarantee that of there was more of a police presence on Cathedral Oaks, the number of alcohol related accidents would be drastically reduced & then we can focus on engineering controls for the regular accidents that happen on that road.
Increased police presence is a combination of administrative & engineering controls. Think of it this way, whenever there's a CHP cruiser on the freeway, what's the 1st thing everyone does? Hint: You see a lot of brake lights lighting up.

Agree with Transparent's analysis, and particularly that context really matters. That is, location and frequency of accidents or mayhem in a particular area or neighborhood result in "coupling", or the "Law of Crime Concentration" (Weisburd). Certain PLACES, combined with PEOPLE that use or inhabit those places, can result in frequent incidents. In numerous policing studies, when attention is paid to high crime areas, for example frequent DUI stops, bad behavior declines and offenders are caught with a variety of drugs as well as alcohol abuse.

Is it possible to request cops patrol an area more often? Is there some reason they cannot put more cops out on Cathedral Oaks, especially at night? Seems the best way to deter and prevent these types of accidents.

This is horrible, so sad,
Every time I open up Edhat there’s a death from a car accident either by speed or alcohol or drugs.
I have witnessed the bars serving people till they are drunk, making up for loss money, just keep serving them.
More police around highly populated bar areas are needed. Also maybe bar tenders should be notified somehow they will also be sited and responsible.