Object Believed Tossed From Overpass : Driver Uninjured After Hitting Shopping Cart on I-5

A motorist traveling south on Interstate 5 escaped injury after his car hit a shopping cart that apparently had been thrown from an overpass, Oceanside police said Friday.

Allen Williams of the 12100 block of Bajada Road in San Diego was on the freeway at about 8:45 p.m. Thursday when his car crashed into the cart, which apparently was tossed from the Brook Street overpass, Sgt. Bill Krunglevich said.

Williams and his wife, a passenger in the car, were not hurt, Krunglevich said. The car’s fender and headlights were damaged.

“We have no way of knowing” if the incident is connected to a recent spate of San Diego incidents in which objects have been thrown at motorists from freeway overpasses, Krunglevich said.

“Shopping carts are left on freeway ramps all the time . . . by transients and others who carry their worldly belongings in them until they can hitch a ride,” he said, but added that police believe the cart was thrown.

On Feb. 29, a 24-year-old San Carlos man was critically injured when a chunk of concrete crashed through the sunroof of the car he was driving on Interstate 5 at the Pershing Drive overpass. Another car had been struck by a similar piece of concrete minutes earlier.

Two San Diego teen-agers were arrested Tuesday in connection with those incidents and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

Hours after the arrests of the juveniles, San Diego police reported another rock-throwing incident, this one on Interstate 8 at the College Avenue overpass. A rock thrown from the overpass shattered a windshield, but the driver escaped injury.

Wednesday afternoon, a softball-sized rock was hurled from the Landis Street overpass on Interstate 805, leaving a deep dent in a van but causing no injuries.