A 70-year-old Loma Mar woman has sued Tesla and others over an Aug. 30 head-on crash on Highway 84 in La Honda, alleging that a 21-year-old Tesla sales representative was showcasing a company car on a road known for speed racing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The complaint, filed Thursday in San Mateo County Superior Court by lawyers at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, names Tesla, employee Micah Zuglian, the racing meetup group 9burgring and its founder, Ethan Garabedian, and the Ambassador Wine Bar as defendants. It says 9burgring had organized a “Cars and Coffee” meetup in the wine bar parking lot that drew dozens of high-horsepower vehicles to La Honda. Brooks was driving west on Highway 84 as the event broke up when, according to California Highway Patrol investigators cited by the Chronicle, Zuglian’s Tesla veered over a double line and struck her Honda Civic at a wooded turnoff at Memory Lane. Witness Joseph Krempetz told the Chronicle he heard tires screech, found a Model Y straddling both lanes with a crumpled front bumper, and saw Brooks’ Honda nearly leave the road.
The lawsuit alleges Zuglian was “going double the speed limit around a blind curve” to impress two passengers and was driving more than 80 mph on a winding highway with a 35-40 mph limit; those speed claims are the plaintiff’s allegations, not a CHP finding quoted in the Chronicle. Brooks was hospitalized for fractured vertebrae, ribs, broken limbs and a traumatic brain injury and remains in rehabilitative care, the complaint said. Lead attorney Niall McCarthy said the Tesla was registered to the company, “suggesting the company had chosen to market its cars at a racing club in an area that’s infamous for street racing.” The lawsuit said more than 20 people have died and nearly 800 have been injured in wrecks on Highways 9, 35 and 84 over the past five years. Garabedian and Tesla spokespeople were not immediately available for comment, the Chronicle reported, and San Mateo County prosecutors have not filed criminal charges.