Woman Dies in Crash on Highway 101

A Santa Barbara woman was killed Friday as she attempted to drive across Highway 101 at Mussel Shoal just moments after leaving her birthday lunch with a cousin.

Authorities and witnesses said Florence Temple, who would have turned 79 today, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her car was struck by an oncoming driver as she tried to make a left turn across the busy southbound lane of Highway 101 from the Cliff House restaurant.

The name of the man who drove the pickup truck that hit Temple’s car was not immediately available Friday evening. He was taken to an area hospital by helicopter.

Witnesses said the man’s truck skidded for about 75 feet before the 3:05 p.m. collision, which forced the California Highway Patrol to close the southbound lane for 20 minutes.

Traffic was backed up for seven miles through Carpinteria.

The restaurant and the few dozen homes that make up the seaside hamlet of Mussel Shoal sit on the ocean side of Highway 101 between La Conchita and Seacliff.

Visitors and Mussel Shoal residents can gain access to Highway 101 northbound only by crossing against southbound traffic.

Dorothy Ledger, 75, of Ventura, said she had urged her cousin to avoid the dangerous left turn onto northbound Highway 101 and instead drive one mile south to the Seacliff interchange.

“I just lost my cousin,” Ledger said.

Gordon McKay, a 12-year resident of Mussel Shoal, said highway engineers have added turn lanes in recent years to make the cross-traffic interchange less dangerous.

Still, he said, when the highway is busy, he drives south to Seacliff to access northbound Highway 101.

Despite the apparent danger, he remembers only one other fatal accident there over the last decade.

“It is a very dangerous area, but I don’t know how they could change it,” McKay said.

Albert Romo, 25, of El Rio, was driving north on Highway 101 when he saw the crash.

“When he hit, the car started bouncing in the air,” Romo said. “I just pictured it coming over [into the northbound lane] and hitting us.”

He was one of about nine motorists who stopped and used crowbars in an attempt to free Temple from her car.

He said Temple’s car had been hit so hard that the pickup’s front fender was embedded in her driver’s side doors, making it difficult to extricate her.

Romo, an offshore oil worker who passes the intersection on his daily commute, said it remains an accident waiting to happen and should be closed.

Friday’s fatal crash, he said, should convince drivers to use safer interchanges at Bates Road and Seacliff.

“It was her birthday . . . and the holidays coming up,” he said. “It’s sad. It’s very sad.”