Oceanside

A Caltrans construction engineer was killed Monday night when he was struck by a car that passed through a barrier of cones restricting traffic on Interstate 5. The driver was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

The California Highway Patrol said David Hoffman, 30, of San Diego, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver of the car was identified as Joseph Machado, 20, of Fallbrook. He was booked at County Jail in Vista on suspicion of felony drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter.

CHP Officer Vic Johnston said the accident occurred in a three-mile stretch of the freeway in Oceanside where Caltrans workers had closed off three lanes. Hoffman and another worker were studying the smoothness of the lanes’ pavement with a device called a profilograph just north of Oceanside Boulevard at 11:47 p.m. when the car crossed through the cones and hit Hoffman.

Caltrans spokeswoman Jim Larson said work crews were rehabilitating the pavement. Hoffman, a graduate of the University of Maryland, had worked for Caltrans for seven years.

“The ironic thing about this is that there was less than one week’s work (left) on this job,” Larson said, adding that Caltrans workers had been repaving the roads in the Oceanside area since November. “This week we would have finished it out.”

Larson said that because of the accident, transportation officials will review whether it is safe to work on freeways at night. Caltrans works late-night and early-morning hours to avoid traffic congestion.

“We’re concerned about the night work,” Larson said. “Usually on Friday nights we don’t work for that reason. There’s a lot of traffic, and people are usually coming out of bars.”

Hoffman became the 23rd Caltrans worker to be killed along the state’s highways and freeways since 1970.