Yesterday afternoon, in the Southwestern portion of San Bernardino County, CA, where the I-10 and the I-15 meet near the city of Ontario, there was a horrific freeway accident.
I mean, the kind that simply takes your breath away and is the nightmare lurking at the back of every driver's brain as he passes those massive semi-trucks moving at warp speed on the interstates. In California and western states, it's especially nerve-wracking if you've got a vehicle that loves to shake, rattle, and roll in semi-truck-air-wash as they roar by, because they allow those piggyback trailers, which nearly double the size of the rigs.
Coming from the East Coast to SoCal in the early '80s, I can remember that being one of the big signs that I wasn't in New Jersey anymore.
Interchanges where two major interstates come together are always places to stay especially frosty, with people looking to change lanes, realizing they missed their lane,s and doing a panicked dive across multiple ones to get to their exit, drivers who won't yield to a turn signal for love nor money, and the classic completely oblivious driver you can meet on any street.
When roads and destinations collide at freeway speeds, it's a trip.
On the I-10 yesterday, it was particularly dangerous because there was already a slowdown and traffic was coming to a complete stop, so eyes were focused on brake lights ahead.
That's when a red semi truck blew into and through the line of stopped vehicles like a tornado.
It never slowed down as it approached the traffic in front of it.
A gruesome crash involving several tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles on the 10 Freeway in Ontario, California, left at least three people dead and two hospitalized Tuesday afternoon.
The crash happened shortly after 1 p.m. in the westbound lanes of the freeway near the junction with Interstate 15, according to the California Highway Patrol.
A man who witnessed the pileup told KTLA 5’s Jillian Smukler that a big rig with a red cab went barreling into bumper-to-bumper traffic, apparently without braking.
The driver is a 21-year-old who was arrested for being under the influence of drugs.
...CHP officials said the big rig driver who didn’t brake was later arrested for driving under the influence of drugs. He was only identified as a 21-year-old man.
Later reports have identified him as being from 'Yuba City', but even twenty-four hours later, we still do not have a name or know anything further about him.
...Three people were confirmed dead at the scene, and four others were taken to a hospital for treatment. Two of those individuals suffered major injuries, according to Jimenez.
The driver of the semi-truck that caused the crash, a 21-year-old man from Yuba City, was arrested on suspicion of DUI later in the day.
However, the dashboard camera from the big-rig has been released, and it is so God awful, it defies description.
The eyewitness accounts were absolutely correct. He plows into the first cars he hits at full speed and goes through them like they were butter.
...The crash caused an eight-vehicle pileup, involving four semitrucks and four passenger cars, one of which was engulfed in flames. Three people were pronounced dead at the scene and four were transported to local hospitals for treatment, Garcia said. No information was available Tuesday night on their condition.
...Jason Calmelat witnessed the crash and told KTLA that his first reaction was “somebody just died.”
“The red truck was traveling at a high rate of speed when everyone else was stopped,” Calmelat told the station. “He didn’t hit his brakes, he didn’t try to slow down, he just went full force into the back of another truck, crushing two other cars.”
One of the passenger vehicles “exploded on impact,” sending a “massive fireball” into the air, he said.
Oh, my God, those poor people.
Horrific
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) October 22, 2025
Dash cam footage shows the driver of this semi doesn’t even attempt to brake before crashing into several vehicles on the 10 freeway in Ontario, California.
Three dead. How did this guy get a CDL? https://t.co/DBrZOqZ3GJ pic.twitter.com/d1qdW8RP0V
Twenty-one years old, driving a massive freeway machine, and he was stoned.
Gobsmacking.
The fact that the state has not released the driver's name yet is also leading to increased speculation that there may be an issue with residency here. California and the Trump administration are at war over Gov Gavin Newsom's dangerous, relaxed standards for the state-issued Commercial Driver's Licenses (CDL), which is what truck drivers need to have.
Gov Ron DeSantis is suing Newsom over the illegal truck driver licensed in CA who caused a ghastly fatal crash in Florida recently.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis dispatched his top deputy to California to oversee the handover of a truck driver accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed three people in Florida last week.
Sending Florida’s new Lt. Gov. Jay Collins underscores Republicans’ push to crack down on illegal immigration. It also revs up a political rivalry between DeSantis and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, both of whom aspire to higher office.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Monday that truck driver Harjinder Singh, a native of India, was in the country illegally.
“Three lives lost because of Gavin Newsom. Because of California’s failed policies,” Collins said Thursday at a press conference near an airport in Stockton, California.
“We’re done with that,” Collins added, using an expletive.
And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has just pulled $40M in funding from CA over the state's refusal to force CDL applicants to be proficient in English.
It doesn't matter either way if this young driver was also an illegal - he's already killed these poor folks. But it would be another insult to hideous injury after driving in the impaired, inexcusable condition he was, and another righteous log on the deportation justification fire.
And another well-earned nail in the coffin of oleaginous Randall Flagg Lite's political aspirations.
I'll be curious to see how long it takes before we find out who this person is. The longer they take, the worse the wild speculation and conspiracies will be.
Prayers up to families who lost loved ones, and may those who were injured heal ever so quickly.
Beege UPDATE: Thanks to a heads up in the comments, we now have a name:
The man suspected of being under the influence when he crashed his tractor-trailer into a crowd of vehicles on the 10 Freeway Tuesday afternoon has been identified as a 21-year-old resident of Yuba City.
Authorities say Jashanpreet Singh was under the influence of drugs when his speeding truck crashed into several slow-moving vehicles caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic in the westbound lanes of the 10 Freeway.
...Officials have not identified the victims, and said some loved ones of those killed have not yet been contacted. At least two others were hospitalized in the fiery crash.
A video purportedly from the involved big-rig’s dash cam was shared to social media and appeared to show the moments leading up to the crash and the decimation of vehicles caught in the path of the speeding truck.
A CHP spokesperson confirmed to KTLA’s Ellina Abovian that the video will be part of the overall crash investigation.
Welp. No word on status.
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