Motorcyclist’s Parents Suing Santa Monica a Year After Son’s Death on Sunset

Last November, Patrick O’Dell, was killed in a traffic collision in which he and his motorcycle slammed into a Santa Monica Big Blue Bus at the western intersection of Sunset and Marquez.

Now, just prior to the year anniversary of the collision, the deceased motorcyclist’s parents, Donald and Martha O’Dell of Huntington, WV, are suing the city of Santa Monica, claiming wrongful death and negligence. They are seeking unspecified damages.

Patrick O’Dell, a 25-year-old aspiring actor and server at Gladstones, was riding to the restaurant at 10:30 a.m. on November 20, 2012, when he crashed into a Big Blue Bus at the aforementioned intersection. According to last year’s reports in the Palisadian-Post, the motorcyclist was traveling westbound on Sunset when he smashed into the side of the bus at the western intersection at Marquez. O’Dell’s motorcycle was lodged under the front, left wheel of the bus when LAPD arrived at the scene.

The lawsuit, issued as a complaint through the Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that the bus was turning left onto Sunset from Marquez, crossing over the double yellow lines that bisect Sunset Boulevard.

Buses, unlike other vehicles, are permitted to use the that intersection to turn around, by entering Marquez from westbound Sunset by turning right at the stoplight, circling around the triangle and then turning left onto eastbound Sunset. Regular vehicles are only allowed to make left turns onto eastbound Sunset from the traffic light, but can make right turns from the stop sign just beyond the triangle in the center of the intersection.

The suit also blames the road for being in a “confusing” condition. Most components of the avenue are criticized, such as signage, traffic controls, turn lanes, sight distances, lane striping, bus routes and light timing.

According to LAPD Detective Brent Johnson, citing eyewitness accounts, O’Dell was traveling close to 80 mph, well above the 35 mph speed limit.

After O’Dell’s death, the Big Blue Bus (BBB) said that supervisors would be evaluating the intersection at Sunset and Marquez. When the Post contacted BBB to ask for the results of the evaluation, BBB community relations manager Suja Lowenthal replied “we are not able to comment.”

As previously reported in the Post, Courtney Hope, O’Dell’s girlfriend at the time of his death, said that her boyfriend was an educated motorcycle rider and adverse to taking excessive risks. Hope did not believe that O’Dell was speeding when he crashed into the bus, saying the “reports didn’t match up.”

“He wasn’t late for work and he was very careful,” Hope said of O’Dell in November 2012.