Inland Valley

By CEDAR ATTANASIO, JILL BLEED and ANITA SNOW

HOBBS, N.M. (AP) — Authorities investigating a fiery head-on crash in West Texas don’t know why a 13-year-old boy was driving while his father sat in the passenger seat of a pickup truck that crossed into the oncoming lane and collided with a passenger van, killing nine people.

The young teen who has not been identified died in the crash along with his father, 38-year-old Henrich Siemens, and six members of a New Mexico college golf team and their coach. The cause remains under investigation, though National Transportation Safety Board officials have said the truck’s front tire, a spare, blew out before the crash.

It’s the latest tragedy for the family of the father and son, of Seminole, Texas.

Community members first rallied around Siemens and his wife, Agatha, in October, when a fire that started in the kitchen destroyed the home where they had lived for a decade. Seminole is a rural community of around 7,500 people, some of whom first relocated to the area in the 1970s with other Mennonite families who started farming and ranching operations.

While the couple and their children escaped the fire without injury, Agatha wrote on her Facebook page at the time that they had lost everything, including one of the family pets.

After the crash, Agatha Siemens shared family photos on social media, saying her husband was the love of her life and that she missed her son. She did not return messages seeking comment.

NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg on Thursday revealed the truck was driven by the child.

After the tire blew, the pickup truck crossed into the opposite lane on the darkened, two-lane highway before colliding with the van. Both vehicles burst into flames.

Although it was unclear how fast the two vehicles were traveling, “this was clearly a high-speed collision,” Landsberg said.

The speed limit at the crash site is 75 mph (120 kph), according to the agency.

Landsberg said investigators hoped to retrieve enough information from the vehicles’ recorders, if they survived, to understand what happened. He said many in the van were not wearing seatbelts and at least one was ejected from the vehicle.

It’s not unusual for young teens to drive in that region and other more rural parts of the United States. One must be 14 in Texas to start taking classroom courses for a learner’s license and 15 to receive that provisional license to drive with an instructor or licensed adult in the vehicle.

Investigators have not yet determined why the youth was behind the wheel, Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Steven Blanco said Friday.

The NTSB sent an investigative team to the crash site in Texas’ Andrews County, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of the New Mexico state line.

The University of the Southwest students, including one from Portugal and one from Mexico, and the coach were returning from a golf tournament in Midland, Texas, when the vehicles collided Tuesday night. Two Canadian students were hospitalized in critical condition.

University of the Southwest spokeswoman Maria Duarte declined to comment on the NTSB’s announcement about the young driver, citing the ongoing investigation. The private Christian college is located in Hobbs, New Mexico, near the Texas state line.

The golf teams were traveling in a 2017 Ford Transit van that was towing a box trailer when it collided with the 2007 Dodge 2500 pickup, according to NTSB spokesperson Eric Weiss.

The Texas Department of Public Safety identified the deceased as: golf coach Tyler James, 26, of Hobbs, New Mexico; and players Mauricio Sanchez, 19, of Aguascalientes, Mexico; Travis Garcia, 19, of Pleasanton, Texas; Jackson Zinn, 22, of Westminster, Colorado; Karisa Raines, 21, of Fort Stockton, Texas; Laci Stone, 18, of Nocona, Texas; and Tiago Sousa, 18, of Algarve, Portugal.

Critically injured aboard the van were Canadian students Dayton Price, 19, of Mississauga, Ontario, and Hayden Underhill, 20, of Amherstview, Ontario. Both were taken by helicopter to Lubbock, about 110 miles (180 kilometers) to the northeast.

“They are both stable and recovering, and every day making more and more progress,” University of the Southwest Provost Ryan Tipton said Thursday.

“One of the students is eating chicken soup,” said Tipton, calling their recovery a “game of inches.”

Tipton said University President Quint Thurman visited the students’ parents at the hospital, illustrating the close community at the college with only about 350 on-campus students.

A memorial was set up Wednesday at the golf course near campus where the team practices, with flowers, golf balls and a handmade sign. Counseling and religious services were made available on campus.

About 150 people turned out Thursday evening to remember Jackson Zinn at Texas Roadhouse, a restaurant where he worked and met his girlfriend of five months.

“We met here exactly at this table,” said Maddy Russell, 20, of Hobbs. “He was my heart.”

The mourners released around 100 blue and orange balloons into the cold whipping wind of eastern New Mexico, which soon disappeared into the horizon.

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Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas, and Snow reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg and Jamie Stengle in Dallas, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, Rob Gillies in Toronto and Barry Hatton in Lisbon contributed to this report.

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Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow Attanasio on Twitter.

By Malathi Nayak | Bloomberg

Elon Musk won’t have to testify in the first case set for trial that blames Tesla Inc.’s Autopilot for a fatal crash, a Florida judge said.

The ruling shielding the company’s chief executive officer from being questioned by lawyers for the deceased driver’s family is a significant win for the electric-car maker.

Without a deposition of the billionaire entrepreneur, it will be harder for the family to argue that Tesla made irresponsible decisions under his leadership about marketing its driver-assistance software at the expense of safety.

The company’s nearly trillion-dollar valuation is partly built on Musk’s championing of autonomous driving as the way of the future.

Tesla has shown that Musk “does not have unique personal knowledge of the issues in the case,” Florida Circuit Court Judge Janis Keyser wrote in a brief ruling.

The lawsuit stems from the 2019 death of Jeremy Banner, 50, who died when his Tesla Model 3 crashed into the underside of a semi-trailer truck crossing a Florida highway. The case is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 20 in Palm Beach County.

The Banner family claims Tesla didn’t fix Autopilot so it would shut down in dangerous circumstances despite a similar accident at a traffic crossing in 2016 that killed another Florida man who had engaged the technology.

Trey Lytal, an attorney representing the Banner family, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla’s lawyers have argued the company has been open and honest about Autopilot’s limitations, including the difficulty of detecting traffic crossing in front of its cars. The company warns drivers on its car screens and owner’s manual that drivers must be alert and ready to take control of vehicles at any time, according to its lawyers.

Lytal argued at a March 10 hearing that Musk’s deposition is central to the dispute because only he can answer the question of why Tesla would “allow this dangerous technology to be used on a roadway where the car knows it’s going to fail.”

Keyser previously rejected Lytal’s request to question Musk early in the pretrial evidence-gathering phase of the case.

Since then, Banner’s attorneys have had a chance to take depositions from almost half a dozen, high-level Tesla engineers, including Christopher “CJ” Moore, the former director for Autopilot who has since gone to work for Apple Inc. on its self-driving project.

But Lytal told Keyser at the hearing that none of the Tesla engineers could answer why the company ignored warnings from government safety regulators and others to stop marketing Autopilot as a technology “with full self-driving capability when it wasn’t.”

Musk has “unique personal knowledge about this,” Lytal said. “That’s why we need to depose him. Nobody else can answer this question.” Even though Musk said in a declaration that he lacks such knowledge, Tesla hasn’t explained why, he said.

Tesla’s attorney, Vincent Galvin, countered that the demands to question Musk are just harassment. The engineers have answered relevant questions, “so the fact that the plaintiff doesn’t like the answers is not a basis for Mr. Lytal taking Mr. Musk’s deposition,” Galvin said.

Keyser said her ruling was based on the “extensive depositions” by Tesla engineers and a written declaration submitted by Musk.

The case is Banner v. Tesla Inc., 50-2019-CA-0099662, Circuit Court of 15th Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, Florida.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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A Black crew member for the television show “Grey’s Anatomy” is accusing a pair of Los Angeles Police Department officers of racially profiling him when they forced him out of the production van he was driving and attempted to arrest him in front of his coworkers, apparently believing he had stolen the vehicle.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday, Ernest Simon, Jr., 31, said the attempted arrest on March 18, 2021 occurred despite the fact that he had already driven onto the Tarzana production lot where he was working that day, past security guards who told the two LAPD officers that he was an employee.

“(The officers) — ignoring the security guard’s explanation and the other readily observable facts that the (lot) was being used for a television production — entered the (lot) and approached Mr. Simon with their guns drawn as Mr. Simon sat in the driver’s seat of the parked van,” according to the suit.

Further, despite Simon’s coworkers telling the officers they were mistaken, more LAPD officers and a helicopter arrived at the lot while Simon was ordered “to lay face down and spread eagle on the hot asphalt.”

In all, it took about 30 minutes for the officers to realize Simon had not stolen the van and release him.

“The LAPD’s wrongful and illegal actions caused Mr. Simon to fear that he was about to be shot at his workplace in front of his co-workers for simply being a Black man in the wrong neighborhood,” said Stephen Larson, an attorney for Simon.

The lawsuit, which named LAPD Chief Michel Moore and 20 unnamed officers as defendants, accused LAPD of unreasonable search and seizure, excessive force, de facto arrest without probable cause, and racial profiling, among other charges. Simon demanded $20 million in damages, though any damages would be determined in a jury trial.

An LAPD spokesman said the department does not comment on pending lawsuits.

In the suit, attorneys for Simon said LAPD claimed the officers who followed him did so because their automated license plate reader “erroneously alerted them that the van’s license plate matched a BMW sedan that had been reported stolen.”

The van Simon was driving was a black Ford Transit with yellow Oregon license plates.

Attorneys for Simon said the officers should have been able to immediately recognize that the plate reader gave them a faulty alert.

However, the lawsuit also claimed the officers started following Simon before the plate reader gave them the erroneous reading.

On the day of the arrest, March 18, 2021, Simon was idling at a four-way stop when he spotted the two officers at another stop sign to his left. According to the suit, Simon waived for the officers to go first.

“Although Mr. Simon had the right of way, he respectfully gestured to (the officers) to go through the four-way stop intersection before him,” his attorneys wrote in the complaint. “Rather than heeding this polite gesture, (the officers) instead waited for Mr. Simon to proceed through the four-way stop intersection.

“Thereafter, (the officers) turned left and began to follow Mr. Simon for several blocks as he drove back to the (production lot).”

Simon continued driving all the way back to the lot, which was located at a parking area and playground at Gaspar De Portola Middle School being rented out by the Disney production.

According to the lawsuit, the lot was clearly marked as a Disney television production with uniformed security guards at the entrance. Other vehicles being used by the production were also parked at the lot, including a fleet of identical Ford Transit vans like the one Simon was driving.

Due to those circumstances, attorneys for Simon said the officers should have been able to recognize their mistake long before attempting to arrest him.

LAPD officials would not say Thursday whether the department was aware that its license plate readers could return erroneous results.

Zach Norris, the executive director for the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, wrote in June 2021 that unreliable technology combined with biased policing can lead to bad outcomes.

“Unfortunately, they are wrong at least one in 10 times, and like almost everything else in our policing infrastructure, the technology is unequally applied to concentrate the greatest scrutiny in communities of color and lower-income communities,” Norris wrote.

By COLLEEN SLEVIN and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

Self-disciplined and competitive, Jackson Zinn was all business on the golf course. Despite his big heart for helping others, he could be tough on himself if he wasn’t shooting in the 60s.

Family pastor Rick Long of Grace Church in Arvada, Colorado, said Zinn had just wrapped up a tournament with his University of the Southwest teammates in Texas when he called his father, Greg Zinn, to talk about what he thought had been a disappointing round.

“And he just said, ‘Jackson, you’re amazing. You’re not always going to score the way you need to score. You’ll be great.’ That was their last conversation,” Long said.

About an hour later, the college junior piled into a van with his teammates to head back to New Mexico. It was on a two-lane farm road Tuesday evening that a pickup truck collided head-on with the van, killing Zinn, his coach and five teammates.

Authorities announced Thursday that the truck veered into their lane after a tire blew. An unnamed 13-year-old who was behind the wheel and his passenger, 38-year-old Henrich Siemens of Seminole County, Texas, also died in the fiery crash.

Jackson Zinn was close to his parents and two younger sisters, coached children playing in a special needs soccer league his family organized and was well loved by his co-workers at the Red Robin in suburban Denver where he worked as a waiter when he was home from school, said Long in an interview Thursday.

Zinn transferred to the University of the Southwest after spending one year at a military school in New Mexico, seeing it as an opportunity to both play golf and get a Christian education, he said.

Zinn loved the smell of the golf course and the feel of tees and clubs, and enjoyed being able to relax and play in the church’s annual golf tournament to raise money for Indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon, Long said.

“He said that that’s the one place he could play his game and play it well and not feel the pressure of having to perform because he was doing it for a bigger mission, a bigger reason,” he said.

Most of the students killed in the crash were getting their first taste of life away from home at the private Christian university where on-campus enrollment hovers around 300.

They included freshmen Laci Stone of Nocona, Texas, Travis Garcia of Pleasanton, Texas, Mauricio Sanchez of Mexico, and Tiago Sousa of Portugal. The school and authorities did not release hometowns for Sanchez and Sousa.

Also killed were junior Karisa Raines of Fort Stockton, Texas, and golf coach Tyler James of Hobbs, New Mexico.

The two injured students were identified by authorities as Dayton Price of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; and Hayden Underhill of Amherstview, Ontario, Canada.

Garcia was voted Pleasanton High School’s most valuable player last year, when he and his fellow Eagles made their first-ever appearance at the Texas state championships. He was remembered by those who worked with him at a golf club near Pleasanton as a phenomenal kid who made great strides in just a few short years after first picking up a club.

Myles Dumont, manager of golf operations for the River Bend Golf Club. said Thursday that Garcia played a big role in his high school team’s success. He also said the teen didn’t mind spending hours and hours outside, practicing his craft.

“He really just fell in love with the game, and we were all really excited to see where his golf career was going to take him,” Dumont said. “We were really proud of him, really happy to see him have an opportunity to go somewhere to play. The sky was the limit for him.”

Sousa also had an “immense passion for golf,” said Renata Afonso, the head of Escola Secundária de Loulé, a high school he attended on Portugal’s southern coast.

“He was a very dedicated student, very involved in social causes,” she said. “Any school would be delighted to have had him as a student.”

Before coming to New Mexico, Sanchez had played with the Club de Golf Pulgas Pandas, a club in the prosperous city of Aguacalientes in north-central Mexico.

Stone graduated from Nocona High School in 2021, where she played golf, volleyball and softball. Her mother, Chelsi Stone, described her as a ray of sunshine.

With many students away for spring break, the university was planning a gathering next week, while counselors were at the ready to help students before that. Prayers and condolences continued to flood social media sites as separate fundraising efforts were underway by the university as well as friends to help the victims’ families.

On Thursday, around 150 people turned out to honor Zinn at Texas Roadhouse, a Hobbs restaurant where he worked and met his girlfriend of five months.

“He was my heart,” said Maddy Russell, 20, of Hobbs.

Also at the memorial was Russell’s aunt, who had written her niece’s phone number on a piece of paper for Zinn when Russell was too shy to do it. He texted her that day, and soon became a fixture at the family dinner table.

Many who knew Zinn wore Denver Broncos jerseys, including a co-worker who started their friendship with a football rivalry; she’s a Cowboys fan.

“I was from Colorado, and I wasn’t a Bronco fan and he was,” said waitress Kyleen Valdez, 31. “He came in and told us when Russell Wilson was going to be on the team, they’re going to win again. They’re going to win the Super Bowl. And that’s just that’s how everybody knows Jackson — sports, not just golf.”

The mourners released around 100 blue and orange balloons into the cold, whipping wind of eastern New Mexico, and they soon disappeared into the horizon.

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Slevin reported from Denver. Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque. Associated Press writers Anita Snow in Phoenix and Cedar Attanasio in Hobbs, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

By CEDAR ATTANASIO, JILL BLEED and ANITA SNOW

HOBBS, N.M. (AP) — Nine people have died in a fiery, head-on collision in West Texas, including six New Mexico university students and a coach returning from a golf tournament, as well as a 13-year-old boy, authorities said.

Those killed in the Tuesday evening crash included University of the Southwest students from Portugal and Mexico. Two Canadian students were hospitalized in critical condition.

A pickup truck crossed the center line of a two-lane road in Andrews County, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of the New Mexico state line, and crashed into a van carrying members of the university’s men’s and women’s golf teams, said Sgt. Steven Blanco of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The state agency later identified the deceased as: Golf coach Tyler James, 26, of Hobbs, New Mexico; and players Mauricio Sanchez, 19, of Mexico; Travis Garcia, 19, of Pleasanton, Texas; Jackson Zinn, 22, of Westminster, Colorado; Karisa Raines, 21, of Fort Stockton, Texas; Laci Stone, 18, of Nocona, Texas; and Tiago Sousa, 18, of Portugal.

Also killed were Henrich Siemans, 38, of Seminole County, Texas, and an unidentified 13-year-old boy who had been traveling with him in the 2007 Dodge 2500 pickup.

Critically injured aboard the van were Canadian students Dayton Price, 19, of Mississauga, Ontario, and Hayden Underhill, 20, of Amherstview, Ontario. Both were taken by helicopter to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, about 110 miles (180 kilometers) to the northeast.

Underhill’s brother Drew said their parents, Ken and Wendy, were on a plane headed to Texas.

“Hockey was a big part of life for a while, but his true passion is golf,” Drew Underhill said. “From a small town in Ontario, he’s doing OK.”

The Mexican Federation of Golf posted an online note of condolence to the loved ones of Mauricio Sanchez.

Stone’s mother wrote of her loss on Facebook Wednesday.

“She has been an absolute ray of sunshine during this short time on earth,” Chelsi Stone said in a post. “… We will never be the same after this and we just don’t understand how this happened to our amazing, beautiful, smart, joyful girl.”

Stone graduated in 2021 from Nocona High School, where she played golf, volleyball and softball. She was a freshman majoring in global business management, according to her biography on the golf team’s website.

James’ mother, June James, said she knew little about the circumstances of the collision. He coached the men and the women.

“We don’t know what happened. It’s a huge investigation. We don’t have any idea as of yet,” James said during a brief phone interview.

Team member Jasmin Collum had been scheduled to play but at the last minute decided instead to visit her parents in Houston, her mother said.

“We knew all those people on board,” Tonya Collum said. “Basically the whole team is gone or in the hospital.”

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending an investigative team to the crash site Wednesday, spokesman Eric Weiss said.

The golf team was traveling in a 2017 Ford Transit van that was towing a box trailer when it collided with the truck, and both vehicles burst into flames, Weiss said. They collided on a two-lane asphalt highway where the speed limit is 75 mph (120 kph), though investigators have not yet determined how fast either vehicle was traveling, he said.

The University of the Southwest is a private, Christian college located in Hobbs, New Mexico, near the state line with Texas.

A memorial was set up Wednesday at the course near campus where the team practices. There were flowers, golf balls and a handmade sign with a cross and the initials USW.

“It’s the very least we could to for the players, and of course Coach James,” said Rockwind Community Links Manager Ben Kirkes.

“These kids were great kids and they were great, great community members,” said Kirkes.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said on Facebook that she is “deeply saddened” by the loss of life.

“This is a terrible accident. As we await additional information from authorities, my prayers are with the community and the loved ones of all those involved,” she said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also expressed sympathy.

“We grieve with the loved ones of the individuals whose lives were horrifically taken too soon in this fatal vehicle crash near Andrews last night,” Abbott said.

The teams had been taking part in a golf tournament at Midland College, about 315 miles (505 kilometers) west of Dallas.

“We are still learning the details about the accident but we are devastated and deeply saddened to learn about the loss of our students’ lives and their coach,” University President Quint Thurman said in a statement.

The university said on Twitter that counseling and religious services would be available on campus.

Midland College said Wednesday’s play would be canceled because of the crash. Eleven schools were participating in the event.

“All of the players and their coaches from the participating schools met together early this morning,” Midland College athletic director Forrest Allen said in a statement Wednesday. “We were all shocked to learn of this tragedy, and our thoughts and prayers are with USW as they grieve this terrible loss.”

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Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas, and Snow reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg and Jamie Stengle in Dallas, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow Attanasio on Twitter.

A car heading south in the northbound lanes of the 215 Freeway slammed into another vehicle near Riverside, just south of the San Bernardino County line, leaving two people dead early Tuesday, March 15.

A Ford Fusion was traveling the wrong way on the Freeway, California Highway Patrol officials said in a news release. It crashed head-on with a Ford Focus in the carpool lane at about 12:30 a.m.

The drivers of both vehicles were dead when officers responded, CHP officials said. Both were alone in their cars.

It was not clear whether drugs of alcohol were involved in the collision, CHP Officer Juan Quintero said. The identities of the people who died and further information about the crash were not immediately released.

JURUPA VALLEY — A 30-year-old man was struck and killed before sunrise Tuesday in Jurupa Valley by a vehicle whose driver fled. A suspect from Moreno Valley was later arrested.

Victor Gonzales of Jurupa Valley was hit about 1:35 a.m. at Van Buren Boulevard, north of Clay Street, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Sgt. Javier Morando said Gonzales was walking on Van Buren Boulevard when he was run over, though the specific circumstances were still under investigation.

Paramedics reached the location within minutes following 911 calls and pronounced the victim dead at the scene.

Kyle R. Williams a 38-year-old resident of Moreno Valley, was later arrested on suspicion of fleeing the scene of the accident. Williams was arrested after Riverside police stopped a vehicle with major front-end damage, the Sheriff’s Department said. Jail records showed he was booked on suspicion of DUI and hit-and-run.

Anyone with information on the case was asked to contact the call the sheriff’s Jurupa Valley Station at 951-955-2600.

City News Service contributed to this story.

 

 

Two occupants of a Tesla that was heading the wrong direction and speeding on the 15 Freeway died when it crashed in Ontario over the weekend.

The vehicle had made a U-turn on the freeway prior to the crash, and was travelling north in southbound lanes, California Highway Patrol Officer Stephen Rawls said Monday. It crashed near where the 15 and 10 freeways meet. CHP officers were sent to the crash at 3:16 a.m. Saturday.

Preliminary investigation suggests the 2018 Tesla was speeding when it collided head-on with the end of a k-rail dividing southbound and northbound lanes, Rawls said. Both people inside were killed.

The driver killed in the crash was identified as Jose Elizarraraz Bravo, 24, in a San Bernardino County Coroner’s news release. Luis Elizarraraz Bravo, 29, was the passenger who died. Both were residents of Rialto.

No other vehicles were involved in the crash.

It was not immediately clear whether drugs, alcohol or any sort of mechanical problem were involved in the collision. It was under investigation as of Monday evening.

“Bubble Watch” digs into trends that may indicate economic and/or housing market troubles ahead.

Buzz: Southern California gasoline prices broke the $5 barrier in March’s first week, smashing a record high that had stood for nearly a decade. But what do today’s pump prices mean in the long run for the economy?

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the economic impact of pump prices using benchmarks that stretch back 40 years to the last great inflationary era of the 1980s. The analysis ends with 2019, avoiding any pandemic-related gyrations seeping into the math.

The Trend

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises questions about global oil supplies. A rapidly recovering economy created numerous reasons for folks to drive and fly, boosting demand for fuel. So, gasoline jumped an average 53 cents to $5.20 a gallon — topping the old peak of $4.74 set in October 2012.

The economic yardsticks pondered:

Gas: Gas prices in the Los Angeles area showed 3.4% annualized gains since 1979, according to the federal price index. Fuel went from 94 cents a gallon 40 years ago to $3.58 in 2019. Ah, the good old days! Extremes? The most painful year was a gas-price jump of 35% in 1980 vs. a 24% decline in 1995.

Unemployment: The California jobless rate went from 6.2% in 1979 to 4.3% in 2019. Biggest changes? From rocketing 12.5% higher in 2010 to tumbling 4.2% in 2012.

Home values: A federal index of values statewide showed 5.1% annualized gains in 40 years. Extreme value changes? A 24% hike in 2005 and a 20% decline in 2007.

Rents: An average of the rent slice of local Consumer Prices indexes for Los Angeles-Orange County, the Bay Area and San Diego shows 4.6% annualized gains over four decades. Extremes? Up 11% in 1980 and down 0.1% in 1992.

The Dissection

Local gas prices since 1980 have increased roughly half the time: up in 21 years vs. down in 19. But those jumps are higher than the depths of the drops. An average up year saw a 14% gain while the average dip was a 7% decline.

That helps explain fuel’s long-running upswing. Yet when look at the shorter run, pricier gas often precedes a chill in the following year’s economy. The inflationary whack to the wallet has widespread implications.

Unemployment: After a 12-month increase in gas prices, California joblessness rose the next year 43% of the time as unemployment increased 0.22 percentage points after these costlier fuel years. Compare that with what followed years when gas was down: Unemployment rose only 22% of the time, and overall, these years averaged an 0.4 point decline.

Home values: The year after gas increased, California house prices gained an average 3.8% since 1980 vs. 6.9% in years following falling fuel costs.

Rents: Golden State landlords upped rents on average 4.3% the year after fuel got pricier vs. 4.6% rent hikes following a cheaper year at the pumps.

How bubbly?

On a scale of zero bubbles (no bubble here) to five bubbles (five-alarm warning) … FOUR BUBBLES!

Red-hot economies like 2022’s often can’t handle many hiccups, such as unexpected inflationary injuries.  And one factor in recent soaring gasoline inflation is a robust, broad-based economic expansion that is allowing many folks to successfully absorb record-high fuel prices — so far.

Don’t forget, though, that higher fuel costs hit consumers not only when filling up. Pricey oil increases the costs to produce and deliver numerous goods, both as raw material to transportation expenses.

All this inflation anxiety will also further solidify the Federal Reserve’s resolve to hike the interest rates — tacking on another wide-reaching expense to household and corporate cash flows.

So try to temper your anger while watching the price go up at gas stations. Ignore much of the political spin that serves as energy policy analysis these days. And pray for Ukrainian peace — and the possible gas-price relief that may follow.

For your wallet’s sake, though, just look at track records: Rising gas prices, at a minimum, cool overall spending. Plan accordingly.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com