Within an hour, a vehicle struck a bicycle and two automobiles crashed into each other in separate incidents at the corner of Zelzah Avenue and Lassen Street today.
The bicyclist was taken to a local hospital by an ambulance, according to Officer Scott Vostad with the Valley Traffic Division.
The second incident, which Vostad witnessed while investigating the bike-car collision, was a non-injury crash, the officer said.
“Amazingly, no one got hurt — it’s a very dangerous intersection,” Vostad said.
The second crash occurred around 4:30 p.m. when a car driving east on Lassen collided with an SUV headed west turned left onto Zelzah.
“(Officers) said I was lucky, because it would usually be (ruled) my fault,” said CSUN economics major Patrick Ylagan, who was driving an SUV involved in the crash.
Shanice Rivers, sociology major and driver of the vehicle, insisted the light was yellow when she entered the intersection, but Vostad said it was red.
“It’s actually both their fault. She can’t go when it’s red, and he can’t go until the intersection is clear,” Vostad said.
It was both students’ first car accidents, they said.
“I’m nervous, I don’t even know what to say about it,” Ylagan said.
The second incident is a collision and not an accident because it could have been prevented if one of the two drivers had been paying more attention. An accident is not preventable, according to Vostad.
“More people are killed on the road than all crime combined,” Vostad said. “People aren’t usually killed intentionally, they’re killed by carelessness.”
