A motorcycle rider died early Wednesday morning after crashing into a parked car and a pole on York Boulevard in Highland Park, police said. The crash was reported at about 5:30 a.m. near York Boulevard and Avenue 49, just south of Occidental College, and the rider was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Los Angeles Police Department reported the crash, according to The Eastsider LA, which reported the victim was a man believed to be about 30 years old. Investigators shut down a stretch of York Boulevard between Avenue 49 and Armandale Avenue while they worked the scene, snarling traffic on one of Highland Park’s main commercial corridors.
Formal identification of the victim will follow standard county procedure. Fatal traffic collisions in the city are referred to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner, which performs autopsies to determine cause of death and notifies next of kin before releasing an official identity, per the county medical examiner’s office. That office investigates roughly 10,000 deaths annually across Los Angeles County.
Who Is Investigating the Crash
Crash reconstruction and any witness follow-up fall to LAPD’s Central Traffic Division, which oversees traffic enforcement and collision investigations across the department’s Central Bureau, including the Northeast Area that covers Highland Park, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The division manages traffic investigations across 1,139 street miles of central and eastern Los Angeles. Anyone with information about the crash can reach Central Traffic detectives at (213) 833-3713 or call 877-ASK-LAPD.
A Dangerous Stretch of Roadway
York Boulevard is designated part of the city’s High Injury Network by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, a set of corridors that make up just 6% of Los Angeles street miles yet account for roughly 70% of fatal and severe traffic crashes citywide. The city previously carried out a road diet project on York Boulevard in Highland Park, reconfiguring the former multi-lane road to add dedicated bike lanes and center turn lanes to calm traffic, according to reporting from Streetsblog Los Angeles. Wednesday’s fatal crash occurred on a stretch of the boulevard that has long been flagged for its safety risks despite those changes…