Originally Posted by sudo bike

I haven't been following this closely enough to form an opinion on his guilt, but what you quoted here doesn't match your conclusion that he's guilty.

He is saying he was not able to stop, and so he handled it in the best way he thought he could, which is to aim for the place with the least amount of people while laying it down. It also isn't very unusual for people to "freeze" the moment they realize they are going to crash, they are going to crash hard, and there's nothing they can do to stop it. I've seen enough street lights with short yellow cycles and overzealous pedestrians, that I could certainly imagine an unfortunate scenario where he entered the intersection legally, and then was confronted with a wall of peds. Especially if it is a bigger intersection (haven't seen it, don't know), I've been in situations where it was even turning yellow as my front tire entered, and I still ended up still just in the intersection while red.

Also, as I'm surprised it is still being discussed, there is nothing in California vehicle code that states entering an intersection on a yellow is illegal. The only way you could be cited is to use another catch-all, like "reckless driving", which I'd be surprised to see stick in that case.

Now, his other actions prior may encompass reckless driving and so he may be found guilty this way... as I said, I'm not following closely enough to say, but it is certainly possible. I'm just pointing out that the yellow light is a red herring (ironic), and that his quote really doesn't damn him, but rather explains why he chose the action he did.