Truck Rams Over Divider, Snarls Traffic

Several lanes of the Ventura Freeway in the Calabasas area were closed for nearly two hours during Wednesday morning’s rush hour after a truck slammed through the roadway’s center divider, the California Highway Patrol reported.

“A lot of people were late to work this morning,” CHP Officer Kenn Rosenberg said.

The accident occurred at 6:15 a.m. Until the freeway was cleared shortly after 8 a.m., three of the four eastbound lanes and one of the four westbound lanes were closed, he said.

The dump truck was hauling a trailer with a small tractor on top, Rosenberg said. Driver Raul Quesada, 22, of Orange was heading west on the freeway approaching Las Virgenes Road when he inexplicably veered onto the steep right shoulder, the officer said.

The truck rolled back onto the freeway, crossed the westbound lanes and crashed through the concrete divider, Rosenberg said. It came to rest on its side after ejecting Quesada and hurling the tractor off the trailer and onto the eastbound lanes, he said.

While the lanes were closed, traffic on both sides of the freeway slowed from Woodlake Avenue to the Ventura County line--a distance of about 15 miles, Rosenberg said.

Quesada was treated for minor injuries at Humana Hospital West Hills and released, a hospital spokesman said. There were no other injuries, although an eastbound car was damaged by flying concrete from the damaged center divider, Rosenberg said.