BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 At the corner of California Avenue and S Street, where earlier this week a car crashed into this tortilla shop. The manager says this is the second time an accident has happened here. They\u2019re now worried about the safety of their employees.<\/p>\n
On Monday night at 9:42 p.m., a car plowed through the front windows of Graciana\u2019s Tortilla Factory, causing significant damage to the front area of the business. In this video, you\u2019ll see the moment it happened.<\/p>\n
According to the manager, a coworker saw on a live stream that their workplace had been hit by a car.<\/p>\n
She says this isn\u2019t the first time an accident has happened outside the factory. Just last month, another car flipped in front of the shop, leaving her concerned for her employees\u2019 safety.<\/p>\n
Ilma Lira the manager, at Graciana Tortilla Factory says \u201cIt\u2019s really, really scary for us. You never know what can happen. My employees are here doing their job, and what if one of those days they get involved in an accident \u2014 a bloody accident? I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t want to think about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lira adds part of the problem, along with distracted and impaired driving, is high speeds, with people racing down the road.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s now asking the city for help. \u201cMaybe they can help us with a stop sign or the yellow bumps that slow down the speed of the cars.\u201d Lira said. <\/p>\n
I reached out to Ward Two City Councilman Andrae Gonzales to see what can be done about these speeds. He pointed to the city\u2019s traffic calming program, launched in 2020, aimed at making roads safer.<\/p>\n
Residents can request speed bumps, roundabouts, \u201cslow down\u201d signs, more police enforcement, and other safety measures \u2014 all without paying out of pocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like there\u2019s opportunity to really slow down the traffic. If you take a look at some of these collectors, especially in the southwest, there are long stretches between intersections, so it gives people a long time to just pick up speed \u2014 and it gets wild. This is similar, which is a pretty lengthy distance.\u201d Gonzales said.
Madi: \u201cBut it is possible, right?\u201d
Gonzales: \u201cIt is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
But help can\u2019t come soon enough for employees at the tortilla shop. For now, they just pray someone doesn\u2019t come barreling through their walls next time. \u201cIt\u2019s about the safety of my employees working here. Maybe they don\u2019t think about the high speeds, but I\u2019m thinking of them always.\u201d Lira said.<\/p>\n
Gonzales says he\u2019s ready to work with Graciana\u2019s to find a solution and help keep the community safe, adding that drivers need to slow down and stay alert before another serious crash happens.<\/p>\n
The manager tells me they just want something done before someone gets hurt.<\/p>\n
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 At the corner of California Avenue and S Street, where earlier this week a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,155,153,152,387,21819,6996,179,350,5817,3606,19930],"class_list":["post-29408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-business","tag-calm","tag-cars","tag-community","tag-crash","tag-drive","tag-drivers","tag-speed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}