Due to a gasoline tanker truck accident -- which resulted in an eco-unfriendly dousing of over "26 gallons" (?) of gasoline, or so said CBS 5's Judge Judy breaking-news interruption -- all northbound and southbound lanes on Highway 101 in Redwood City are closed. That? Blows. It seems that a 26,000 gallon gasoline tanker big rig overturned just north of Maple Street near Woodside. According to ABC 7, a "Coast Guard crew is heading......

How to go fast and not get tickets?...

Although he is "believed to be a good swimmer," 32-year-old Eric Wright's rescue search has now turned into a body recovery effort according to CBS 5. The Tracy resident was reported missing after Wright's father-in-law discovered his boat capsized this past Sunday in the Bethany Reservoir in Alameda County. Sheriff's deputies, park rangers, and CHP helicopters will still conduct "periodic checks for Wright on the shoreline and surrounding areas" along the the Bethany Reservoir......

Can you believe it's been a year since James Kim died in the Oregon mountains? We're very sorry to pass along the news that another Northern California family is missing in what we're hoping is not going to be another family holiday tragedy story. The Dominguez family went out last Sunday to cut down Christmas trees in the Sierra mountains: the father, Frederick, and his three children, Christopher (18), Alexis (15), and Joshua (12). That's......

Sounds like a mess down on 880 just north of Highway 84, where a big rig ran off the highway at around 1 a.m. this morning and spilled its cargo all over the highway. The cargo in question -- crushed cars. The driver suffered major injuries and was sent to the hospital; traffic is currently moving at about 20 mph and is expected to be snarled until 10 a.m. at the earliest, and CHP has......

When you're delivering 3 gallons of GHB (the “date rape drug”) from areas north to San Francisco, maybe you should stick to the speed limit. A fool from L.A. was pulled over for speeding in Sonoma County when cops found the offending liquid in the car. Homeboy probably would have gotten off with just a ticket, but instead decided to act all sketchy, causing the CHP to search his car. The GHB, worth around......

-- Michelangelo Antonioni dies; Mick LaSalle suspects Eric Rohmer will fade to black next. [Chron blogs] -- Chronicle wanted Gonzalez in the mayoral race. Alas. [BeyondChron] -- A baseball trader "shocker" happened involving the Giants. [Chron] -- Firefighters get raise. Hot. [Examiner] -- Murdoch to get WSJ. [Chron] -- Bay Bridge to shutdown during Labor Day weekend. Again. [Oakland Tribune] -- Overpass falls on FedEx truck and driver near Sacramento. [KGO7] -- CHP officer......

This story about the Berkeley family killed in Tilden Park by the husband over business problems is so sad. Friends of the family describe the husband, Kevin Morrissey, as "brittle," "desperate," and as having a "very controlling side," though by all accounts deeply in love with his wife. The wife, Mamiko Kawai, is described as a wonderful doctor and the two girls as adorable. The CIA will neither confirm nor deny the husband's claims that......

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is all over the problem of keeping only confident, competent senior drivers on the road. It's unveiled a new video to educate both seniors and those with seniors in their lives on the risks associated with driving while aging. It's introduced by former State Senator Quentin Kopp -- himself a senior -- who, in a bold performance admits that he, too, finds himself driving slower on the freeway. ...

The CHP is recommending to the Solano County DA's office that they press reckless driving charges against State Senator Carole Migden, for her wild, lane-changing, simultaneous cell-phone-talking and paperwork-reading 30-mile drive in Fairfield, culminating in a fender-bender. Reckless driving is a misdemeanor and has a max penalty of $1000 and/or 6 months in jail. Migden was found at fault not only in rear-ending the other car, but also in hitting a guardrail earlier in the......

How can this be true, I-Team? It must be impossible. That's the only explanation. Do you really expect us to believe that in the past five years, out of the thousands of bike-car collisions in the Yay Area, sixty percent were caused by the bicyclists? That's preposterous! Everyone knows that bicycles are incapable of driving unsafely. Just like how black people can't be racist. Dan Noyes, head inspector at the I-Team and blogosphere crush......

Hey, remember last Friday when State Senator Carole Migden got in a fender bender in Fairfield? It was the same day that Ed Jew's office got raided, so you might have forgotten. So the original story was that Migden was lost, and took her eyes briefly off the road to make a cell phone call and hit someone's bumper. Not great, but sure, it happens. Well, now KTVU is reporting that the CHP is......

--There were more bikes than cars on Market Street today for Bike To Work Day. Soon we will realize our dream where every car driver is assigned an individual biker to yell at them with a camera in hand. --Better to be biking to work than on MUNI -- as some of you reported to us, there was a massive meltdown in the tunnel this morning when the computer system crashed. Maggie Lynch says......

We can't decide if we're sorry we missed this, or if we're extremely grateful that we take BART to work in the mornings. So around 7:30 a.m. this morning, an SUV ran into a pickup truck on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge. Words were exchanged, tempers flared, the fight turned into a "physical altercation," and then all of a sudden the driver of the pickup truck jumped onto the hood of the......

A little bit more of those tapes that the Angelides camp got their grubby little hands on months ago were released and if you dial a 1-800 number you could listen to them. No, wait, that's the new Arcade Fire song, not these tapes. Either way, the Governator's people aren't happy that they got put out there. But since the CHP deemed nothing illegal on what happened, there's nothing they can do about it....

Hey, we're back from vacation! And we just missed the 5-foot sinkhole that opened up on California Street between 6th and 7th Avenues for New Year's Eve. Does anyone have pictures? In our second item of news on the city's west side, CHP and the SFPD shut down the Golden Gate Bridge to pedestrians to thwart Code Pink's peace march across the span, to commemorate the 3000th U.S. casualty in Iraq. Code Pink didn't have......

We got two (two!) stories today about weird little traffic related mayhem. ...

Expect a snarled commute today: three cars and two trucks mixed it up on southbound 101 near 22nd Street at 2:19 p.m.. Only minor injuries, but Officer Cakebread of the CHP (awesome name) says there's no ETA on how long it'll take to clear the highway. That means more time with you and the light hits on KOIT. Officer Cakebread is all over the news today -- earlier, he came to our attention when he......

Whoa! A lady gave birth on the side of 101 at Bailey Avenue near San Jose early Sunday morning. The father called in to 911 at around 2:50 a.m. saying he needed an ambulance, but called back one minute later to say the baby was born fine. The ambulance came anyway, to take them to the hospital and (very impressively), CHP cleared the ensuing traffic jam in less than 30 minutes. A UC Berkeley student......

Tough few days in SoMa -- the mysterious power outage yesterday and today, a four-alarm fire above the Olympic restaurant at Fifth and Clara that's required the CHP to close down the Fifth Street 101 onramp and close down traffic on Fifth and on Harrison. (What a dramatic way for Eve to start her first day at the Chron, which is just a few blocks down the street! Stop, drop, and roll, Eve!) The Olympic......

They really do have different problems from the rest of us up in Marin! The Fairfax police have their hands full with complaints about a guard dog taking his job protecting his family's goats (four cashmere, one dairy) a little too seriously. Five neighbors have complained about herding dog Percy's loud barking, which is supposed to drive away coyotes but instead brings on the police instead. Well, we suppose that's one way to keep the......

Drag-racing on 101 -- such a bad idea, even if you don't kill members of the Tongan royal family. Grieving Tongans have left so many mementos at the site of last Wednesday's accident that CHP determined the area was a traffic hazard and removed everything that had been left. When the reporter was there, six vehicles pulled off by the side of the road to pay their respects, which CHP says isn't the safest thing......

Special late Monday edition, since tomorrow's a holiday! A fun-loving 3-year-old got in a car accident on Friday in Santa Cruz County's Soquel -- while his father was distracted by a younger sibling's diaper change, the toddler grabbed the keys to the family SUV, climbed into the car through the back, jumped into the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition, turned, and put the car in drive, which sent the car down their......

Happy July 4th weekend! -- unless you have to work on Monday. The airports are hoppin', the roads are crowded, and CHP is cracking down on DUIs and seat-belt law scofflaws. Bummer for those of you incorporating I-80 into your July 4th vacation plans, though -- major delays in both directions are expected after a westbound big rig carrying unspecified musical instruments caught on fire and exploded around noon today, near Fairfield. CHP has opened......

San Jose institution Lou's Living Donut Museum is closing at the end of this month, due to an illness in the family of the owners, the Chaviras. The eponymous Lou of the donut shop opened the store in 1955 and sold to the Chavira family in 1981, and the store/museum's current location is on Delmas and W. San Carlos in downtown San Jose. The Chaviras open the store at dawn and close when the last......

You know how GoldenPalace.com is buying everything weird for publicity? Like the grilled cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary on it, or hiring streakers? (Their list of auctions is some pretty entertaining reading.) Well, they were stymied in their attempt to purchase Jerry Garcia's toilet -- after paying $2550 for the pink-colored throne, it was stolen, along with three other toilets and a bidet, from the current owner's driveway. Golden Palace is offering a $5000 reward for its return. Wonder if Golden Palace staged this whole thing? In San Anselmo, a 16-year-old is so upset about the theft of her bichon frise that her parents have allowed her to stay home from school today. She and her mother were at the DMV applying for her learners' permit, and they'd left the bichon in the car for about 20 minutes. When they came back, someone had opened the door to their Saab (whose locks were broken) and taken the dog. They paid $850 for the dog, which was a present for the daughter's 14th birthday. He's white with brown markings around the eyes, and answers to Napoleon -- if you see him, call the CHP at 415-924-1100 or page Mom at 415-258-5080. And yipes! A car chase that began on 18th and Mission last night raced onto the highway and culminated in a dramatic crash on Treasure Island. The driver repeatedly rammed his car into the cop cars, injuring two officers. Officers then fired at the car, injuring two riders. A third passenger was injured in one of the ramming incidents. ...

Lots of accident-related news today. First off -- crank up "Livin' On A Prayer" because like Bon Jovi says, it's slippery when wet. A sudden downpour in Santa Clara led to 13 -- yes, that's 13, not a typo -- separate accidents in under an hour on three separate highways -- 280, 680, and 87. No one was seriously injured, but a few drivers were taken to the hospital, and traffic was a nightmare. CHP......

Ironic, that one leaving for work early in the morning to avoid traffic can end up causing it. A man driving to work in Palo Alto around 5:30 this morning slammed into the side of a 60-foot-long delivery truck on Middlefield near San Antonio. The man claims he didn't see the truck, which seems a little weird to us, because the truck had blocked three lanes of Middlefield as it was backing into the Toyota of Palo Alto lot. The guy was going under 20 mph, and wedged his 1994 Acura Legend right underneath the trailer. Fortunately, no one was injured, in part because the guy was going so slow and the car was relatively low to the ground. Up in San Francisco, the professionally-sensitive CHP have announced that a woman was found wandering in a daze by the side of 101 S near Cesar Chavez around 7:30 this morning with minor bruising and bleeding. According to the article, the woman, who was picked up at the corner of 16th and Mission, was "negotiating for some type of services" with the man, whom she reports not knowing, when they got in an argument and he pushed her out of the car near the 280/101 split. Gee, what do you think was going on there? The woman claims the car was going 60 mph, but the CHP says her injuries would have been much worse if that were true. Call 1-800-TELL-CHP if you have any information. ...man, finding the third entry is always the hardest. Um, MUNI is closing down parts of Third Street this evening as they test the electrical system for the new Third Street rail. You'll see a flash and hear some popping sounds at 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. tonight. ...

Thomas Hawk shares this picture of a very, very quiet Bay Bridge from the Oakland side. According to the Mercury News, there were two closures during the day due to a suspicious package:The Bay Bridge was shut down twice this morning in both directions while authorities investigated a suspicious package near Treasure Island, according to the California Highway Patrol. The first closure occurred around 9 a.m. after Coast Guard officials spotted the item on......

We've all thought about it -- but who knew someone had the Easter Eggs to actually go and do it? CHP arrested a Petaluma man Wednesday on 101 in Marin for dressing up a dummy and putting it in the front seat of his car so he could use the carpool lane. The solo commuter had dressed up a kickboxing dummy in a Miami Dolphins jersey and baseball cap and reclined the front seat back so it looked like the Marino fan was just taking a quick nap on the way to work. A cop, who often checks in windows as cars whiz by in the HOV lane, thought it looked funny and pulled the guy over. Cops say they don't usually catch folks with the full-on dummy, but it's fairly common to find people with dolls strapped into car seats. It's a $351 fine -- but hey, who knows how long this guy had been pulling this? If you amortize that over like a year, that's just a buck a day! (Maybe it's time to revisit that highway toll lane proposals after all!) ...