80-year-old woman who died after driving off embankment in Laguna Beach ID’d

An 80-year-old woman who died after driving off the embankment of a South Coast Highway shopping plaza parking lot Friday, in the same spot where a similar fatal crash occurred last year, has been identified by coroner’s officials.

Police responded to the Aliso Creek Plaza shopping center off Coast Highway shortly after 7 p.m. to find a black sedan lying upside down on a sidewalk directly below the parking lot, situated more than 25 feet above the roadway, KTLA reported Saturday.

Yellow police tape is tied around a wooden fence at the Aliso Creek Plaza shopping center in Laguna Beach, where a woman died after a solo vehicle crash.

(KTLA)

It appears that a lone driver — initially reported as 79 years old but identified by the county coroner’s office as Christine Larek, 80, of Laguna Beach, according to Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Gerard McCann — may have driven over a curb and through a wooden fence before careening off the rocky embankment, according to the news outlet.

Larek was transported to a nearby hospital, where she died of her injuries. The incident is the second such fatal crash to occur from a car driving off the steep hillside in recent years.

On May 26, 2025, 64-year-old Laguna Beach man James Politoski was teaching his 15-year-old daughter to drive at the same shopping center parking lot, when the vehicle lost control, crashed through a wooden fence and landed on the highway below.

James Politoski, 64, of Laguna Beach, was teaching his daughter to drive in a shopping center parking lotin May 2025 when the car careened down a steep embankment onto Coast Highway below.

(John Trevino)

The teen was hospitalized and ultimately survived the crash, the Daily Pilot reported, but Polotoski succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a KTLA broadcast Monday, local resident Joanne McMahon, who stood before a wooden fence that was wrapped in yellow caution tape and splintered from the recent crash, told a reporter the city needed to take measures to prevent any further crashes.

“This fence needs to be replaced; you can see rotting wood in this fence,” McMahon told KTLA. “Something’s got to change, and I think the city needs to get involved.”

Laguna Beach police Monday did not respond to requests for information on the incident or the vehicle involved.