An 18-year-old motorist was killed early Wednesday when the SUV he was driving veered off a hillside roadway near El Cajon, tumbled hundreds of feet down an embankment and caught fire, authorities reported.<\/p>\n
The eastbound 2003 Ford Explorer crashed off La Cresta Road near Ranch Gate Road in the unincorporated Crest community shortly before 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to the California Highway Patrol.<\/p>\n
Initially, the deadly accident was believed to be just a rubbish or vegetation fire, but emergency crews who made their way down the slope found the burning vehicle with the driver’s body inside, San Miguel Fire & Rescue reported.<\/p>\n
The deceased motorist’s identity was withheld pending family notification.<\/p>\n
Using a drone, sheriff’s deputies searched the area for any other victims, finding none.<\/p>\n
The cause of the deadly wreck, which left the roadway closed to through traffic near the crash site until about 4 a.m., was unclear.<\/p>\n
“This is an ongoing investigation,” CHP public-affairs Officer Jasmine Lopez said in the late morning. “It is unknown if drugs and\/or alcohol were a factor in the crash.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 18-year-old motorist was killed early Wednesday when the SUV he was driving veered off a hillside roadway…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":795803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,21030,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-795802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-el-cajon","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116572957566104213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}