A driver who ran a red light at more than twice the legal blood-alcohol limit and killed another motorist on a Carlsbad roadway has been sentenced to 10 years in state prison. Philip Webb pleaded guilty to charges including gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for the August 2025 crash that killed Leonard Davison, 51.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Webb drove under the influence and crashed into Davison's vehicle at a Carlsbad intersection. The Coast News reports that prosecutors said Webb ran a red light at Piraeus Street around 5:20 a.m., striking and overturning Davison's pickup truck as it traveled along La Costa Avenue. Davison was taken to a hospital, where he died.
Reports have identified Webb's age differently across coverage of the case. The Coast News reported Webb was 34 when he pleaded guilty, while an earlier report from NBC San Diego identified the Subaru driver police arrested at the scene as 33-year-old Philip Webb of Oceanside.
Breath Tests Showed Blood-Alcohol Levels Well Above Legal Limit
Court documents cited by the same report show Webb's breath tests registered blood-alcohol levels of 0.095% and 0.101%, taken just over two hours after the crash. California's legal limit for drivers is 0.08%, meaning Webb's readings came in above the threshold even hours after he got behind the wheel.
NBC San Diego's original report on the arrest described a Subaru crossover colliding with a Nissan pickup truck in the collision. Police arrested Webb on suspicion of driving under the influence causing injury or death and vehicular manslaughter, the station noted at the time.
Pattern of Fatal DUI Cases Across the Region
Webb's case is not the only fatal Carlsbad DUI prosecution to work through the courts recently. NBC San Diego has also reported on a separate Carlsbad case in which a man pleaded guilty to charges including gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated after fatally striking a pedestrian.
A similar outcome played out just to the north in Bonsall, where, as reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Janely Bautista was found guilty in a 2024 crash that killed Ricardo Becerra, 53, and severely injured his wife, resulting in a prison sentence. Statewide data from the University of California, Berkeley's Transportation Injury Mapping System allows the public to explore alcohol- and drug-related crash and injury trends using crash records from the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System maintained by the California Highway Patrol, tracking patterns dating back to 1997.
