Santiago Canyon Road Claims 2nd Life in a Week

A 41-year-old man died Tuesday after his pickup rammed a semitrailer truck in front of him on Santiago Canyon Road, several miles from a winding stretch where another motorist was killed last week, authorities said.

Michael Stanley Sammons, the driver of a Ford Ranger pickup, apparently was speeding when he slammed into the back of a truck hauling dirt, according to a preliminary police investigation of the crash.

“It’s bizarre,” Roy Griffith, an Orange police investigator, said. “It’s one of those things where you just sit back and scratch your head and wonder why it happened.”

Sammons, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown toward the windshield and immediately died, police said. The driver of the trailer truck was not injured.

Sammons’ death is the second fatal crash in less than a week along Santiago Canyon Road, a curving road that links Orange and El Modena with communities in the southern part of the county. The road often is used as a shortcut by commuters.

Tuesday’s crash occurred just before 9:30 a.m., when the driver of the semitrailer truck, traveling east on Santiago Canyon, was en route to Tustin for a delivery, police said.

The driver had stopped at a red light at Newport Boulevard. When the light turned green, he began to drive forward and Sammons, from Placentia, collided into him from behind, Griffith said.

When officers arrived, they found the front of the pickup crushed against the trailer truck.

“The pickup was totaled,” Griffith said.

No citations were issued at the Tuesday collision and the investigation is continuing, he said.

Last week, David Keeton, 29, of Trabuco Hills died after he cut off another driver along a curvy segment of Santiago Canyon and crashed, investigators said. Keeton, who did not wear a lap belt, was ejected to the back seat of his car and died at the scene.

Traffic investigators said the motorists in both accidents would have had a chance of surviving had they fully worn safety belts.