A woman driving a car that collided with a shuttle vehicle at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula on New Year’s Eve told police her accelerator stuck and she was unable to stop her fast-moving Saturn Aura.
Fourteen people were injured in the accident, two seriously, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Vivian Edwards, 65, of Corona, was going down the exit ramp from the third level of the north parking structure at Pechanga about 8 p.m. and had accelerated to 45 or 50mph when she rear-ended a Hyundai Elantra that was in front of her, the CHP said.
The Saturn continued forward, striking a support pillar in the garage and then an open-air Pechanga shuttle — similar to a golf cart — that was carrying seven passengers.
The shuttle vehicle overturned and the driver and passengers were ejected, the CHP said. The Saturn then struck a curb and came to a stop in the rocks of a landscaped planter.
Williams was not arrested, but the investigation is continuing, CHP Officer Jesse Udovich said Sunday evening. Drugs and alcohol were not factors, he said.
Investigators have been unable to confirm Edwards’ assertion that the accelerator had stuck, Udovich said.
“It was either driver error or a mechanical failure,” he said.
Two passengers in the golf cart suffered major injuries and six had moderate injuries, the CHP said. Edwards and her passenger — according to Pechanga, the passenger was her husband — and the four occupants of the Hyundai also had moderate injuries.
Pechanga spokesman Robert Bledsoe said the shuttle ferries guests between outlying parking areas and the resort. He said the vehicle does not have passenger restraints.