A man using a wheelchair was critically injured Monday night when a southbound pickup truck struck him as he crossed outside a crosswalk in the 3700 block of Locust Avenue near Bixby Road in Long Beach. It was the second reported crash involving a wheelchair user on Long Beach streets in 10 days.
The collision happened at about 9:40 p.m. Monday, according to MyNewsLA.com, which reported that Long Beach police responded to an injury-collision report. Long Beach Fire Department personnel transported the injured man to a hospital.
Reports described the man's condition differently: police said he was in critical but stable condition, while the report also described him as being in critical condition. The pickup driver stopped and cooperated with investigators. Police said neither impaired driving nor distracted driving was found to be a factor in Monday's crash or the earlier incident.
Earlier Fatal Crash
Monday's collision came just over a week after a 64-year-old wheelchair user was fatally injured in a separate Long Beach hit-and-run crash on Sept. 18. In that case, a 23-year-old driver was arrested several blocks from the crash scene and booked on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter, the outlet's report notes.
The two crashes occurred within a 10-day span. No further details on the Sept. 18 victim's identity or the case's disposition have been made available.
What broader crash data can show
Long Beach's Safe Streets Action Plan ranked high-injury corridors and intersections using fatal and serious injury crash data from Jan. 1, 2013, through Dec. 31, 2017. Those rankings provide historical context, not current crash counts for Locust Avenue. The cited plan information does not establish whether city or state collision records identify wheelchair users separately or provide a wheelchair-user-specific count for this location. A BMJ Open study, as reported by MinnPost, estimated that 528 pedestrians using wheelchairs were killed in traffic collisions in the United States from 2006 through 2012, a rate 36 percent higher than for other pedestrians. Those historical national estimates do not establish a trend or explain either Long Beach crash.
Investigation Continues
Long Beach police are continuing to investigate Monday's crash and have urged anyone with information to call the collision investigation detail at 562-570-7355. No additional details about the driver involved in Monday's crash, including whether any citations were issued, have been released.
