In the relatively average town of Colton, California, is a relatively non-average thoroughfare called Reche Canyon Road. This road likes to kill people.
Strictly speaking, the road itself has no specific feelings towards people either way. What it does have, however, is a series of problems:
- It’s only two lanes, and does not have any safety dividers
- Besides serving local traffic, Reche Canyon also serves drivers traveling between Colton and Moreno Valley.
- Approximately 102% of these through-drivers are vision impaired, aggressive a-holes who enjoy passing each other despite the fact that it’s dangerous and illegal in most places.
- As an added bonus, the canyon has wild donkeys living in it. These donkeys are dumb.
- Various dumb people who are dumb feed the dumb donkeys, which then sometimes congregate on/near the road and pretend to be slalom poles.
In the multitude of times I’ve driven the road (my girlfriend and some friends live nearby), I’ve never seen a police officer on the road. I’ve never seen a construction crew adding safety dividers. I have, however, seen numerous people nearly hit each other (and me). I’ve also seen more roadside memorials than on any other SoCal road that I can remember.
There have been at least two fatalities on the road this year (1,2), as well as a number of other collisions, like this one. Lots of other people have died over the years, like this guy, this guy, and this guy.
After the most recent death in August I decided to document 5 of the memorials with a small number of photographs. Since the local transit authorities apparently hate their residents I expect there will be more memorials to come, unfortunately.
As I was taking that last photo above, I heard two engines straining and then a horn. Looking up, I saw yet another person crossing the double-yellow to save 20 seconds on their commute.
Fortunately there was no accident this time, although the day after I first published this I heard that there was another collision in the canyon. Sigh. Life (and preventable deaths) goes on I guess.
Take a look at the rest of my site for more photos, most of which aren’t sad.
Unfortunately it’s true, but well said Jake! Just too sad for those who have died….and scary for everyone else who still travel this road!
The donkeys are NOT the dumb ones. The idiots who think that Reche Canyon is a petting zoo/feeding place are the dumb ones. The donkeys in fact, are very smart because they can rely on the DUMB PEOPLE to feed them. The speed racers are also the dumb ones, to day the least.
I work for aaa on the Moreno valley side of the canyon and it’s sketchy having to help someone that has a flat or ran out of gas on that road
The donkeys are dumb. Case in point, they are the only animal living in the canyon that fails to get out of the way of oncoming traffic.
What about the big accident on Easter? All I have heard that it was a 4 car head on, haven’t heard a word about it. Are they trying to keep the deaths and accidents hush hush now.
I have live in Reche Canyon for over 30 years and it is not that the road that causes the accidents it is more like those poor drivers decided to die on Reche Canyon . I am all for closing the road or making it a toll road which has been talked about for years but none of us can get the courage to do the job myself included. A toll road would bring in funding that could create those safety barriers or put in place proper guardrails . They did straighten the road at the Hitching post the way they built it with that turn never made sense to me. Honestly if the city of Colton city council and past Mayors were not so damn corrupt maybe money would have been allocated for improvements . Riverside county portion was repaired and improved considerably . Reche Canyon is the forgotten territory or when the city is interested in the canyon it is to exploit it for as much tax revenue as possible. Never putting very much back into the canyon itself. May those souls rest in peace. Thanks for taking the time to bring this topic up it needs to be discussed more.