They Killed People With Their Big Rigs, and California Let Them Keep Driving

Here are the morning’s top stories on Friday, November 13, 2024:

• The California Department of Motor Vehicles did not suspend or revoke the license of unsafe commercial drivers even after they killed someone, a Calmatters investigation has found.
• The Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is calling for attorneys to help oversee law students representing people in a Contra Costa County Immigration Court.
• A fin whale washed ashore a Santa Cruz beach this week.

Loren Chow looked in the rearview mirror and had a terrifying realization.

We’re going to get hit. There’s nothing I can do to get out of this.

Traffic outside Fresno had slowed. A semitruck loaded with fertilizer from Missouri, cruising at 65 miles per hour, hadn’t. By the time the driver, Baljit Singh, hit the brakes, it was too late. A fully loaded big rig traveling at that speed takes the length of nearly two football fields to stop.

Chow, his wife and their 17-year-old son were headed home from a college visit in June 2022. Singh’s red Freightliner smashed into the back of their SUV and flipped it. Jenny Chow died. Law enforcement said Singh caused the crash by driving too fast.

Loren Chow can’t talk about the details of the collision because of an active lawsuit against Singh, the trucking companies and vehicle manufacturers. But court filings, police reports and driving records lead to a simple conclusion:

If the California Department of Motor Vehicles had done its job, Jenny Chow would still be alive.

The federal immigration court in Concord is backlogged by nearly 200,000 cases, with many of those involving people who could be eligible to remain in the country — if they had lawyers.

The National Lawyers Guild on Wednesday called on Bay Area attorneys with immigration experience to help provide crucial assistance to people with cases at the East Bay court, which has seen case levels explode following the closure of San Francisco’s court in May.

Attorneys are needed to supervise law students who are working with the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Chapter to file critical motions that can stave off deportation of people seeking asylum and other immigrants with valid cases for a judicial hearing.

The organization said in a statement that those hearings are not being scheduled because of a type of motion being filed more often by Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers seeking to have judges make immediate decisions on deportations while denying an asylum seeker a further judicial hearing.

A fin whale washed ashore at Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz Thursday morning.

Robin Dunkin, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory, said the whale was alive when it washed up, but looked emaciated and soon died.

“ When we first arrived, we saw the tail moving around, body twitching, body movement,” she said. “And, we really didn’t see any of that for at least one hour.”

Dunkin said they estimate the whale weighed between 25,000 and 30,000 pounds. She explained towing a whale carcass out to sea is usually preferred, but the weight of the animal and an incoming storm made that too dangerous, especially so close to the Municipal Wharf.

“Obviously, protecting human safety is our primary concern,” said Dunkin. Instead, the city decided to tow the whale over the beach and onto a flatbed trailer. “They’re trying to get a rope around the animal’s fin to anchor the animal so that it doesn’t keep drifting toward the wharf,” she said, as they prepared for the move across the beach.

Dunkin said keeping the carcass will give scientists a chance to conduct a necropsy and look for the cause of death.

“Whale carcasses like this are a really important source of information and science, and that’s the best way the animal can live on,” she said.

The researchers initially considered a rescue, but the sub-adult animal was clearly sick.