CHP: Investigation continuing into fatal Hwy 126 collision

CHP Officer Steve Reid said the crash occurred September 11 at about 7:05 p.m. on the highway east of Toland Road.

Leopoldo Puentes Ruiz, 17 of Bakersfield, was driving a 2006 Dodge Magnum eastbound on the highway in the #1 lane with his sister, Maria Guadalupe Puentes Ruiz, who was in the right front seat of the vehicle. “Ruiz and his sister were on their way back to Bakersfield after visiting family in the Oxnard area,” noted Reid.

As Ruiz was traveling eastbound, his vehicle drifted left and across a left turn lane into the westbound #1 lane directly into the path of a 2005 Chevrolet truck driven by Rocky Edwards, 53 of Exeter. Reid said Edwards saw Ruiz’s vehicle “headed directly at him and steered to the left to avoid a collision,” but was unable to avoid the other vehicle and the two collided in the westbound #1 lane. 

Edwards’ truck was “loaded with welding equipment and materials which were thrown out of his vehicle as it spun out across the roadway into the eastbound lanes after the collision.” The spilled items from Edward’s spinning vehicle “caused a massive debris field across all lanes” of the highway before the truck came to rest facing eastbound straddling the two lanes. 

After colliding with Edwards’ vehicle, Ruiz’s Magnum spun out across the westbound lanes, ran off the roadway and struck a guardrail.