Driver enters plea in fatal collision case
The driver who allegedly struck and killed a pedestrian on San Antonio Road appeared in court this month.
Twenty-one-year-old Spencer A. Scranton of Los Altos pleaded no contest Dec. 2 to one misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter.
Sentencing for Scranton is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Feb. 2. He faces up to one year in county jail or probation.
The midday collision occurred April 2 as 74-year-old Los Altos resident Henry Kolm crossed San Antonio at Hawthorne Avenue. Scranton was 20 years old at the time of the collision.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office issued an arrest warrant for Scranton May 2 after a three-week investigation conducted by the Los Altos Police Department. The investigation concluded that he was driving 8 mph above the posted speed limit and failed to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. He was not found to be driving outside the norm of other drivers or with gross negligence, police said.
DUI checkpoints set up countywide
The Santa Clara County Police Chiefs Association and California Office of Traffic Safety last week reported a 37 percent drop compared to last year in DUI arrests for the first weekend of the county’s annual “Avoid the 13″ anti-drunk driving campaign. Each year 13 police agencies in the county band together for the campaign.
DUI arrests as of Dec. 19 stood at 140, down from 221. There have been five DUI crashes since the campaign began, compared with three last year.
On Dec. 10 officers from the Palo Alto and Los Altos police departments and the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety staffed a sobriety checkpoint in Palo Alto. More than 800 vehicles entered the checkpoint and police arrested six people for driving under the influence. One of the six was booked on felony charges for a fifth DUI charge in four years.
San Jose police lead the county in DUI arrests with 42, followed by the San Jose office of the California Highway Patrol with 22 and San Jose State University
police with 11. Mountain View is fourth in the county with 10 arrests. Police in Santa Clara County kicked off the campaign Dec. 16. The campaign runs through Jan. 2.
Arastradero lights an unknown in LAH
A decision on the fate of two Arastradero Road traffic lights could arrive in mid-January, pending a Palo Alto traffic analysis report.
Los Altos Hills Planning Director Carl Cahill reported at the Dec. 15 council meeting that while he has received no communiques, he believes ongoing traffic meetings have kept affected Hills residents in the loop.
Palo Alto has jurisdiction over the road. Hills residents balked last summer at Palo Alto’s plans to install traffic lights on the rural road.
Increased traffic is anticipated on Arastradero due to a project planned there by Stanford University as part of the Mayfield Agreement. The city of Palo Alto posted a statement on its Web site that the “character of the road should remain unchanged.”
- Town Crier Staff Report
