Two people suffered critical injuries Thursday evening in a multi-vehicle crash on northbound Highway 17 near Summit Drive in Santa Cruz County, close to the Santa Cruz-Santa Clara county line. The crash happened before 6 p.m. and both injured people were transported to a hospital by ambulance.
According to SFGATE, CAL FIRE's CZU unit and other agencies responded to the scene near Summit Drive. Authorities had not provided an immediate update on the two injured people's conditions as of the report.
A Stretch of Road With a Troubled History
Thursday's crash adds to a long and documented pattern of collisions along Highway 17 through the Santa Cruz Mountains. The corridor was first identified as a high-collision area back in 1998, based on collision-data analysis and agency recommendations, according to the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission.
That designation led to the creation of the Safe on 17 Task Force, formed to develop and implement collision-reducing strategies, including additional California Highway Patrol enforcement, traffic-safety improvements and public education, the commission notes. Data from the task force's most recent annual report shows fatal and injury collisions on the highway climbed an average of 12% annually from 2014 through 2019, hitting a program high of 279 injury and fatal collisions that year alone.
Heavy Traffic, Heavy Toll
The numbers help explain why the mountain route remains a persistent safety concern. Caltrans estimated Highway 17 carried 66,200 daily trips at the Santa Cruz-Santa Clara county line in 2018, with volumes increasing every year since 2013, per the commission's report. In 2019 alone, the highway recorded 839 total collisions, including four fatal crashes and 275 injury collisions, and the three-year average of fatal and injury collisions from 2017 through 2019 stood at 262 — well above the Safe on 17 program's goal of 165.
To combat those trends, the Safe on 17 program logged 1,186 hours of extra CHP enforcement and 1,284 overtime citations on the highway in 2019, the commission's data shows. Other incidents on the corridor illustrate the same risks drivers face on the winding route: a rollover crash on southbound Highway 17 north of La Madrona Road sent four people, including a 24-year-old CHP officer, to the hospital and shut down the roadway for roughly 40 minutes, according to KSBW. In that case, the CHP said drugs and alcohol were not factors, though the cause remained under investigation.
No details on the cause of Thursday's crash, the number of vehicles involved beyond a multi-vehicle collision, or any roadway closures have been released. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.
