Crash kills driver who was headed wrong way

Alicia Robinson

An 80-year-old Irvine woman was killed instantly Monday when she

drove the wrong way on the Corona del Mar freeway, went off an

overpass, and her car burst into flames on Baker Street.

The woman, whose name is being withheld until her family is

notified, was driving north in the southbound lanes around Newport

Coast Drive, California Highway Patrol Officer Scott Moorhouse said.

“At about 2:48 p.m. we had a number of 911 cellphone calls about a

driver who was headed the wrong way in traffic,” he said.

A number of patrol officers were dispatched but they didn’t reach

the driver before her car, a 1993 white Mercury Cougar, left the

freeway and landed upside-down on Baker Street between Bear and

Bristol streets, Moorhouse said.

Jon Tenney of Newport Beach, who was driving home just before 3

p.m., saw a white car coming toward him on freeway. It passed between

his car and the median, he said.

Highway Patrol said the woman was driving up to 50 mph, and Tenney

said he thought she was going between 50 and 70 mph.

After the car passed him, it disappeared, and he wasn’t sure where

it went, he said.

“I saw it coming, and I thought, ‘That’s really weird,’” Tenney

said. “I just saw [the car] all of a sudden, just boom, gone.”

Tenney drove by the accident scene later Monday, because he wanted

to see what happened. It’s amazing that no one else was hurt in the

crash, he said.

“I literally thought I had dreamed it, because it was so

unbelievable,” he said.

Baker Street between Bear and Bristol streets was closed for two

hours while the highway patrol investigated the accident, Moorhouse

said, but so far the patrol has no idea why the woman was driving the

wrong way on the freeway.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.