A 26-year-old Oxnard man is dead after his pickup truck crossed into oncoming traffic and rolled over multiple times on South Lewis Road near Camarillo last Saturday afternoon. He was driving a white Toyota Tacoma northbound on the state highway around 3:10 p.m. when the vehicle veered left across the southbound lanes, struck a roadside embankment, and flipped several times before coming to rest.
California Highway Patrol officers responded to the crash on South Lewis Road north of University Drive, where they found the man suffering from major injuries, according to a CHP news release cited by the Ventura County Star. As reported by KEYT, the man was rushed to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, the primary trauma center serving eastern Ventura County, where he later died.
The Ventura County Star reports the crash occurred outside Camarillo on Lewis Road, a stretch of roadway that also connects directly to California State University Channel Islands. University Drive, the crash site's nearest cross street, serves as the primary entrance corridor linking Lewis Road to the campus, which sits roughly 4.5 miles south of U.S. 101, according to CSU Channel Islands documentation.
CHP Still Investigating Possible Impairment
The CHP's Ventura Area office said it is still investigating whether alcohol or drugs played a role in the crash. Investigators are asking anyone with information about the collision to call 805-662-2640, per the same account from KEYT.
Lewis Road forms part of California State Route 34, a 13.37-mile state highway maintained by Caltrans that links Oxnard and Camarillo to Somis, carrying heavy commuter and agricultural truck traffic between the coast and inland Ventura County. The corridor has seen other fatal crashes in recent years, including a December 2024 incident in which 46-year-old Moorpark resident Jose Meza died after crashing into a center guard rail and being ejected at the Lewis Road off-ramp to southbound U.S. 101, following a high-speed pursuit that began on Pleasant Valley Road, KEYT reported at the time.
A Corridor Under Safety Scrutiny
The Ventura County Transportation Commission's 2024 Regional Transportation Improvement Program identified the stretch of State Route 34 between Ventura Boulevard and Pleasant Valley Road in Camarillo as a candidate for a highway-to-boulevard conversion pilot program aimed at improving safety along the corridor. Lewis Road also plays a broader emergency management role: the City of Camarillo's 2026 Safety Element Update names it one of the city's primary designated evacuation corridors for moving residents during chemical spills or other major disasters.
Other fatal single-vehicle crashes have occurred on rural roads near Camarillo in past years. The Ventura County Sheriff's Office reported that an adult male driver died in a single-vehicle rollover on Las Posas Road, just west of Lewis Road, in December 2021 after failing to negotiate a turn at high speed. Lewis Road's freeway interchange has its own tragic history as well — the Ventura County Deputy Sheriffs' Association notes that Deputy Yevhen “Eugene” Kostiuchenko was struck and killed by a drunk driver during a traffic stop on U.S. 101 near Lewis Road in October 2014, leading the California Legislature to designate a two-mile memorial stretch of the highway in his honor.
No further details about the Oxnard man's identity have been released. The CHP's investigation into the cause of Saturday's crash remains ongoing.
