It has been a little more than a year since Carrie Lopez got the call. Come quick, her son said. There had been a crash.
As the group gathered to honor her daughter at a memorial cross there was a nearby crash, an 18-year-old man riding a motorcycle collided head-on with a truck. Lopez said she worries about motorcycles and quads sharing desert dirt roads and trails with a growing number of more powerful vehicles known as side by sides.
There is one new requirement for side by sides recently put in place: Starting Nov. 1, Ocotillo Wells and Hungry Valley SVRAs began requiring the vehicles have an attached whip, a kind of flexible flag pole, that extends at least 8 feet high and displays a flag. The idea is to make the vehicles more visible on trails and sand dunes.
He said there’s not a lot of research on recreational off-highway vehicles but said such training likely would make drivers more aware of safety rules and could reduce crashes, injuries and deaths. A friend riding right behind her saw the impact, which he said occurred when the side by side was cutting across the graded road. When Lopez’s brother, Jordan, came upon the crash he immediately radioed his parents.
A county Medical Examiner’s report on Lopez’s death said dust clouds obstructed “the vision for all” the riders before the motorcycle and side by side collided — although Lopez and others dispute that.