A Newport Coast motorcycle accident near Reef Point Drive killed a 34-year-old man last Sunday night, according to a news article in The Orange County Register.
Mario Frassetto of Mission Viejo was riding a 2000 Yamaha motorcycle southbound on the Pacific Coast Highway when he veered to the right and hit a guardrail, reportedly for unknown reasons according to the news article’s source, the California Highway Patrol (CHP). Officer Denise Quesada of the CHP reportedly said Frassetto was thrown off by the impact and died at the scene of the crash.
I offer my condolences to the Frassetto family and friends.
According to a study reported by the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (), five crash types account for 86 percent of fatal motorcycle crashes: motorcycle runs off road (41 percent), motorcycle or other vehicle runs traffic control (18 percent), head on (11 percent), car turns in front of motorcycle (8 percent), and motorcycle goes down in roadway (7 percent) According to the CHP statistics, 26 people died and 730 were injured in motorcycle accidents in Orange County in 2006.
It is interesting that Officer Quesada said Frassetto suddenly veered into the guardrail for unknown reasons. So, what were the “unknown reasons”? Certainly Frassetto’s family is going to want to know. Was there debris on the roadway or some other unsafe condition, one that caught Frassetto unawares and left him no time to safely react? Maybe there was another vehicle involved. Maybe there was a mechanical defect in his bike.
If I were representing the Frassetto family regarding this tragic motorcycle crash, other than scrutinizing the CHP’s traffic collision report, I’d have my own investigator out to the scene to examine the location scene searching for evidence and clues. I’d also advise the family to keep the motorcycle preserved in its damaged state so our experts could examine it for any defects that could have contributed to the auto accident and to help us reconstruct the accident to figure out what exactly happened.
The Frassetto family needs to keep in mind that all legal claims have time limits within which specific action must be taken to preserve their rights. Failure to act timely will terminate their rights. Time limits for taking action are as short as six months.