Wild Night On Highway 24 Saturday

Travel on our local freeways was a challenge Saturday night as back-and-forth pursuits, inadvertent spike-strippings and messy crashes made navigation difficult at best.

“Came home from the city to Lafayette and the west bound lanes just west of the tunnel were a mess!” one local traveler wrote us a little after 11 pm last night.

Much of the trouble seemed to stem from the multi-agency pursuit of a car and driver wanted for running down pedestrians in Oakland, catching local police off guard as it sped back and forth on Highway 24 between Orinda and Lafayette at speeds in excess of 100mph. California Highway Patrol and local units attempted to intercept the vehicle, deploying spike strips in an effort to slow it down or stop it but incapacitating seven innocent vehicles instead.

Those cars lost their tires and pulled off the highway, exacerbating conditions on the road, further worsened by crashes at the west end of the Caldecott Tunnel. Three cars – two without tires – had come to rest in the westbound lanes approaching Hwy 13, further slowing traffic as passing motorists stopped and attempted to help.

Our photographer, following the suspect vehicle until he lost sight of it, followed the blinking glow of police helicopters to a location in Hayward he thought might have indicated where the wanted car had gone to ground. Instead, he found himself in the center of an entirely different police action – apparently unrelated to the initial pursuit and action on Highway 24.

His return trip home was hampered by limping and disabled cars and vehicles stopping to look at all the emergency lights. All in all a busy night on our namesake freeway.