Truck sizes by Axle:

Following an onslaught of concerns stemming from a big rig accident in neighboring La Cañada on April 1 that claimed the lives of a father and his young daughter, and injured seven others, new signs have been posted on the Angeles Forest and Angeles Crest highways and the Foothill (210) Freeway, warning of the steep grade and restricting five axle trucks.

The big rig truck involved in the accident had taken the route from the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway through the forest on State Route 2 (ACH) and toward the L.A. Basin. On the downhill grade as it approached La Cañada, the truck apparently lost its brakes.

Angel “Jorge” Posca, 58, and his 12-year-old daughter Angelina, both from Palmdale, had just exited from the eastbound 210 Freeway and started to turn north onto the ’Crest, headed toward their home, when the truck struck them and dragged them to Foothill Boulevard.

The big rig, driven by Marcos Costa, 43, from Massachusetts, hit five more cars before plowing into the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse at the base of the grade.

Almost immediately after the accident, the questions of why there are not truck arrester beds along Angeles Crest in La Cañada and why big rigs are even allowed over the ’Crest were asked again by the city of La Cañada Flintridge to California Department of Transportation.

This was not the first time a truck has burned out its brakes going over the ’Crest. In fact, the Valley Sun documented at least 10 such incidents since 1951 at the same intersection after the September 2008 crash involving a semi-truck filled with onions that lost its brakes, plowing into several parked vehicles in the Hill Street Café parking lot. That accident seven months ago was taken as a wake-up call by the city, and officials had been attempting to work with Caltrans to make the ’Crest safer since.

Letters have gone back and forth. In January 2009, the Valley Sun asked Doug Failing, district director of Caltrans, about a study conducted after the September big rig accident. At the time he stated there had not been a history of truck accidents in the area in question and that accident was an “unusual one.”

So when the second “unusual accident” occurred on April 1, the Caltrans study was once again called into question.