A driver heading toward Jackson on Highway 88 was distracted while reaching for a pack of cigarettes Tuesday. Photo by: Bill Lavallie

The California Highway Patrol was busy on July 17 as they raced out to multiple calls as the temperatures rose.

The accidents started early in the day, when a 61-year-old man from Germany became confused on the transition road between Highway 104 and Highway 88. According to the CHP, Herbert Voss of Berlin was driving southbound on the connector when he slowed his 2009 Hyundai, due to confusion over a red light he spotted. Directly behind him was 23-year-old Caitlin Lewis of Pine Grove. CHP officers said that Lewis did not allow herself a safe following distance from Voss, and was unable to prevent her vehicle from striking the other motorist. Neither Voss nor Lewis was hurt in the encounter.

Later that afternoon, another rear-end collision, this time on Highway 88, west of Fuentes Drive, left a Stockton motorcyclist with serious injuries. The accident happened around 2:30 p.m. Kathryn Kirkpatrick and Sharon Young of Apache Junction, Ariz., were driving eastbound on the highway in a 2006 Ford. A line of waiting traffic caused them to slow to a stop. Reports from the CHP indicate that 62-year-old Peter Faipas, who was behind the Arizona women on his Harley-Davidson, did not realize that the cars ahead of him on the roadway had stopped. Faipas hit his breaks extremely hard, but slammed into the Ford, launching him into the air. He was rushed by helicopter to the trauma center at Mercy San Juan Hospital.

The third vehicle collision CHP responded to Saturday night had officers declaring an arrest. According to official reports, 60-year-old Fred Weaver of Sutter Creek was traveling eastbound on Shakeridge Road when, "due to his level of intoxication," he rolled his 1998 Plymouth. Due to the significant injuries Weaver sustained in the crash, a CHP officer notified him he was under arrest, and then allowed him to be airlifted to a Sacramento hospital. The charge pending against Weaver is driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance.

Another danger from smoking raised its head Tuesday, when a driver heading toward Jackson on Highway 88 was distracted while reaching for a pack of cigarettes. According to witnesses, the driver drifted off the right side of the road, over-corrected and then spun out. In an instant, that driver had crashed into an oncoming sedan before ricocheting down an embankment and into a ditch about 100 feet below. Fortunately, the family in the oncoming vehicle, a brother and his sister, two children and dog, were uninjured. Jackson Fire, Pine Grove Battalion 10 Fire, CAL FIRE and an American Legion Ambulance were dispatched to the scene. CHP is investigating the accident.