Motorcyclist Killed at Site of Frequent Accidents

WOODLAND HILLS —  A motorcycle rider was killed Sunday morning when his bike struck a curb on Topanga Canyon Boulevard at the end of a winding stretch of road that neighbors say invites traffic accidents.

Yaacov Fitoussi, 25, of Reseda was heading into the canyon when he was flung from his motorcycle at the intersection of the boulevard and Ybarra Road, said Officer M. Lopez of the LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division.

Police went door to door searching for witnesses to the one-vehicle wreck, but no one they spoke to had seen it.

Area residents, however, said they have seen a procession of other accidents in the three-block twist of Topanga Canyon Boulevard north of Mulholland Drive.

A neighbor, Chuck Berger, whose home lies just beyond the curb Fitoussi struck, said drivers become too confident as they descend the Santa Monica Mountains.

From the border of Calabasas to the Ventura Freeway, Topanga Canyon Boulevard is a near-straightaway compared with the hairpin turns of the canyon.

Only a slight westward bend and an eastward approach interrupt the straightforward path.

“Drivers think it’s OK to drive fast in that little strip,” Berger said. “That’s why 911 [dispatchers and I] know each other on a first-name basis.”

From his front lawn, Berger pointed to a bush where he said a couple died in a car wreck six years ago, a concrete bench where a man was thrown from a convertible two years ago and a light pole where the driver of a van was killed two years ago.

“We always get our two or three deaths a year, one every six months,” Berger said.

Motorcycle riders are drawn to Topanga Canyon Boulevard by the very thing that makes it so dangerous--its sinuous path, said Tommy Lam of Los Angeles. Lam and dozens of other sport bikers buzzed into and out of the canyon Sunday.

“Anyone will tell you it’s sad when a biker gets killed, because it is,” Lam said.

“But when I ride, I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about taking the curves, and the sun and the wind. If it’s still warm enough to ride the day before Christmas, then you should be out riding. I’m sure that’s what [Fitoussi] was thinking about.”