Traffic Snarled, 1 Killed as 4 Rigs Pile Up on Freeway

A fatal accident on the Golden State Freeway involving four tractor-trailer rigs and an abandoned car brought rush-hour traffic to a standstill Thursday morning, with frazzled commuters jumping to alternate freeways and streets only to find them snarled as well.

The California Highway Patrol reported that the accident was cleared by 11 a.m., but it still meant an hour’s delay getting to work for many commuters from the San Fernando Valley and outlying areas.

“There are only so many main routes into downtown Los Angeles. You take one away and obviously all the others are affected,” said Officer Mike Haas, a CHP spokesman. “There is only so much room for error in Los Angeles.”

The accident, a chain-reaction pileup that scattered huge truck rigs and debris across the Golden State Freeway near Los Feliz Boulevard, began at 4:15 a.m. when a tractor-trailer traveling south drifted to the right shoulder and struck an abandoned car. Haas said the two-trailer rig jumped a guard rail and struck an overpass pillar, blocking two freeway lanes.

Three more southbound rigs tried to avoid the wreckage. One truck jack-knifed and skidded into the center divider. The other two sideswiped each other before skidding to a halt sideways across three lanes of the freeway.

The driver of the first rig, Andrew L. Moerch, 48, of Montrose, was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger, Everett L. Aston, 33, of Tulsa, Okla., was injured and taken to County-USC Medical Center in critical condition. The drivers of the other rigs were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

Two lanes of the Golden State were reopened 90 minutes later, but it wasn’t until well past rush hour that the other two lanes were cleared, the CHP reported.

The accident created massive tie-ups on other freeways as commuters sought ways around the collision. The CHP reported that it was stop-and-go along the southbound Hollywood Freeway. The eastbound and westbound lanes of the 134 Freeway near Glendale also were snarled with commuters exiting the Golden State for surface streets or in search of a route to the Hollywood Freeway.

“A lot of downtown commuters were probably late an hour or more to work,” Haas said. “But we had no reports of freeway violence or anything like that.”

An investigation into the accident is continuing. Another CHP spokesman said Moerch may have fallen asleep at the wheel.