A 25-year-old man is dead and his passenger is hospitalized after an unregistered McLaren 720S Spider flipped on its roof on Friant Road. California Highway Patrol officers responding to the crash just after midnight found the high-performance convertible overturned at Friant Road and Belcher Street/Road near Cliff Finch's Topiary Zoo in Fresno County.
According to ABC30, the driver was heading north on Friant Road when he lost control of the car, struck the median, and flipped. Officers declared him dead at the scene. His passenger suffered serious injuries and was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, which operates the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the central San Joaquin Valley, according to Maison Law. Officers said drugs or alcohol did not appear to be factors in the crash, and Friant Road was temporarily closed for the investigation before reopening.
An Unregistered Supercar With 710 Horsepower
The vehicle involved was an unregistered McLaren 720S Spider, a twin-turbo V8 exotic convertible capable of 710 horsepower and top speeds of 212 mph, per the same Maison Law account of the crash. Operating a vehicle on a public highway without valid DMV registration is itself a statutory infraction under California Vehicle Code Section 4000(a)(1), according to Justia Law. While CHP confirmed that alcohol or drugs were not apparent factors, investigators had not determined why the driver lost control, according to Maison Law.
A Friant Road Intersection Known as 'Friant Roulette'
This is not the first time a sports car has gone airborne on this stretch of road. In a separate incident near Bluff View, a driver lost control of a Chevrolet Corvette C8 and slid hundreds of feet into a field at high speed without alcohol involvement, according to a Reddit account referencing CHP outreach that used photos of the Corvette wreck to warn the public about speed dangers on Friant Road. Big Ben Lawyers calls the Friant Road and Shepherd Avenue intersection “Friant Roulette,” citing 42 crashes and a confusing lane and signal layout.
Those hazards were formally documented. A Fresno County Civil Grand Jury investigation determined that the Friant Road and Shepherd Avenue intersection presents severe safety risks tied to its road configuration, visibility obstacles created by sound walls, and reduced traffic enforcement, as reported by CBS47. The grand jury gave city officials 90 days to respond to its traffic safety concerns at the intersection.
Fresno's Broader Speed Problem
The crash fits into a wider pattern of speed-related danger across Fresno County. California Office of Traffic Safety rankings have placed the county 53rd out of 58 California counties for speed-related fatal and injury collisions per vehicle miles traveled, a comparison Hoodline previously reported in the context of another deadly rural crash. Caltrans records also show intersection-related crashes accounted for 24 percent of traffic fatalities and 25 percent of serious injuries across the Fresno region between 2010 and 2019.
The Fresno Vision Zero Action Plan has documented nearly 500 fatal or serious injury collisions citywide between 2018 and 2022, an average of one life lost every seven days, according to The Injury Law Firm. It is the latest in a string of serious Fresno-area crashes this year, following Hoodline's coverage of a crash that killed two people on Lincoln Avenue.
The cause of Thursday's rollover remains undetermined, per Maison Law's reporting. Whether county supervisors face renewed pressure to add traffic-calming measures or stepped-up enforcement along Friant Road remains an open question as the investigation continues.
