Here are the key details reported by news outlets: ​

When: The collision was reported just after 6:45 a.m. today, Monday, October 20, 2025. ​

What: A vehicle struck three bicyclists who were in the bike lane. ​

Victims: ​One of the bicyclists was pronounced dead at the scene. ​The other two bicyclists were transported to a local hospital with serious injuries. ​

Driver: A 43-year-old woman driving a gold 2006 Mercedes E-Class was arrested. ​Arrest/Charges: The driver reportedly continued for about half a mile before stopping. She was arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run, gross vehicular manslaughter, and possession of narcotics.

​Investigation: The Huntington Beach Police Department is investigating the crash, and it is not yet clear if drugs or alcohol were a factor in the collision itself. ​The intersection of PCH and Newland Street was closed for several hours for the investigation.HBPD Investigating Fatal Traffic Collision Involving Three Bicyclists On Monday, October 20, 2025, at 6:47 a.m., the Huntington Beach Police Department (HBPD) responded to a report of a traffic collision near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Newland Street involving a vehicle and three bicyclists.

Upon arrival, officers located three adult male cyclists in the roadway. One cyclist was pronounced deceased at the scene, and two others were transported to local hospitals with severe injuries. The preliminary investigation indicates that a 2006 gold Mercedes E-Class struck the cyclists as they rode in the bike lane.

The driver, Amber Calderon (07/15/82), of Long Beach, was arrested approximately half a mile from the scene after she ultimately stopped. Calderon was arrested for gross vehicular manslaughter, felony hit and run, felony DUI, and possession of narcotics.

The HBPD Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT) is handling the investigation. Anyone who may have witnessed the collision or events leading up to it is encouraged to contact HBPD at (714) 536-5670.

Contact: Corbin Carson, Public Affairs Officer (657) 237-5664 Release Date: Oct 20, 2025

This is very sad and sobering news to wake up to

https://bikinginla.com/2025/10/20/on...tington-beach/

"This is at least the 48th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in Orange County.
Drivers have fled the scene in 16 of those SoCal crashes, or one out of every three fatal crashes involving someone on a bicycle since the first of the year."

Tragic, as PCH along the Orange County coastline is a popular bicycling area, with a lot of group rides going along it. There was some helicopter video on the TV news, it looked like it was on the northbound southbound side of PCH just before Newland, right in front of the power plant and bird recovery center, so no possibly morning sunlight problems for the 6:45am. There's really no 'bike lane' there, just a wide asphalt shoulder with a 'fog stripe' separating the shoulder from drive lanes on PCH (3 lanes of traffic each way) and sandy area off the asphalt. Brief views of one of the bikes from above looked like it was they were a drop handlebar road bike, carbon fiber frame the way the frame was snapped apart (no bends typical of Al or steel frames). Driver in possession of narcotics kinda says it all.

EDITS in RED

If you are southbound and you want to skip most of HB/Main St. area, turn left on Sea Point Dr, ride past the Golf Course and the park, stay on Garfield, all the way to Bushard, then turn right. Take this all the way to PCH. This is where the Viet Velo Team rides on the weekends.

Things get complicated near Bella Terra, but its still better than PCH.

PCH isn't that bad early on Saturday or Sunday morning when traffic is light. A little better way with fewer traffic lights if you're coming southbound on PCH from Sunset Beach might be turn left off PCH up Goldenwest, turn right on Yorktown (where the shopping center and HBHS baseball field is), proceed eastbound along Yorktown to Bushard, turn left and and back down to PCH. You still have to deal with the busy and narrow Mariners Mile area in Newport Beach after the HB 'Downtown' area if you go farther south. I've seen that Viet Velo group on Bushard a few times; GADZOOKS! is that a big group! Maybe 50 bicycles?

One other way to avoid most of H.B. from the Pier going south.

Assuming you're riding early when the sun is up...not like 6:30AM..

Just use the Multi Use Path along the beach...and conditions permitting, use the parking lot as well.

Even at 8:00AM, the Multi Use Path (MUP) really isn't busy. From the HB pier to the SART, maybe 3.2 miles.

The difficulty is the MUP does get busy with pedestrians going from the parking lot to their favorite place on the sand.

Yes, its going to be an obstacle course and thus...slow.

This type of riding may not be to your liking. But it will allow you to ride along with everyone else. It is the similar kind of riding along Long Beach's MUP.

One thing about the parking lot: Near the HB Pier, there's the three big hotels, and then Pacific City. These bring in lots of sales tax revenue and hotel tax to the City. Thus, you will experience the "parking lot take-over". The parking lot tends to be used by the Hotels as a type of venue for a sort of sales/entertainment place. But not all the time, just whenever there's something going on.

This hits home since I often ride that section of PCH. Not a lot, but often enough and usually around that time and in that direction.

Several years ago when I started riding with a couple of retired friends they would always take a path or MUP whenever available. At first I was always complaining about how long it's going to take us to get somewhere. Now, I have gotten so use to it that when I do get back out on on an old stretch of PCH or other relatively busy road I really see how crazy riding on the street can be. I feel so sorry for the guy who lost his life. There he was probably enjoying a great ride on a beautiful morning and....

Garden Grove man killed while cycling was a father of 4, beloved pastor

RIP

Wow...of course always hard to hear about this kind of accident. But HBHS is my alma mater so especially hard to hear.

You all are suggesting ways to not get exposed to all that beach traffic. Here's a suggestion: move away or just go surfing. Riding a bike in soCal seems so pointless with all the cars and stop lights. For a while, I moved inland (I wasn't a bike centric) but I would ride the riverbed to help supplement my exercise. Sometimes I'd venture into the mean streets. I remember telling my cycling dad (lives in NH) that I had figured out a route that kept me from putting my foot down at a red light for 12 miles. I thought that was a huge win. LOL, now I could ride for thousands of miles without having to put my foot down for a light and probably only see a few cars.

Move away.......you'll know what I am talking about once you do.

Update https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-...-death-of-gard

A Long Beach woman who allegedly struck three bicyclists on Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach last month — critically injuring two and killing a Garden Grove pastor and father of four — answered to hit-and-run charges in court this week.

Amber Kristine Calderon, 43, appeared in a Westminster courtroom Thursday, where she pleaded not guilty to three felony hit and run charges stemming from the early morning Oct. 20 crash near the highway’s intersection with Newland Street.

Prosecutors allege around 6:47 a.m., Calderon drove her vehicle, a 2006 gold Mercedes-Benz E-Class, onto the shoulder of southbound lanes where the cyclists were riding, striking all three men before driving through a parking lot kiosk, despite the fact her car had a flat tire, was missing a side mirror and had sustained damages to its hood, windshield and front bumper.

Rip

Wow—I've ridden through that area countless times, and it seems plenty safe for any experienced cyclist. I've never been there near sun-up or sundown though, so I didn't think about sun being in drivers' eyes as a potential problem when I was there. I ride in the afternoons, and that part is nearly 30 miles from home, and I always schedule my ride so I'm home before sundown.

Now charged with Manslaughter:

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/n...beach-hit-run/

Calderon, who was in court Monday, is now charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated without gross negligence, driving under the influence of drugs causing bodily injury, possession of hard drugs with two or more prior convictions, hit-and-run causing permanent injury or death and two counts of hit-and-run with injury, all felonies.

The new charges were spurred by toxicology results that showed she had fentanyl, methamphetamine and marijuana in her system when her car struck and killed 45-year-old Eric John Williams of Garden Grove and injured two other bicyclists on Oct. 20 at Pacific Coast Highway and Newland Street, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

According to a GoFundMe post from Williams’ family, Eric Williams was a founder of Community Church of West Garden Grove and also a youth teaching pastor at Seaside Community Church. He had just celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary with his wife and was a father of three daughters and a son.

Calderon was driving a 2006 Mercedes E-Class car that struck the bicyclists, who were in a bike lane, and she kept driving for about a half-mile before stopping, authorities said.

She was traveling south on Pacific Coast Highway north of Newland when she drove on the shoulder and struck the victims, the Orange County district attorney’s office alleged.

The two bicyclists who survived sustained injuries including spinal fractures, broken ribs and a broken ankle, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors alleged that Calderon kept driving on a flat tire to a beach parking lot at Magnolia Street, going through a kiosk as a parking attendant tried to stop her, and a witness to the fatal collision, by blocking her path.

Calderon has a criminal history of misdemeanor petty theft in 2009, felony sale or transport of a controlled substance in 2011 and misdemeanor burglary in 2012, according to court records.

This isn't an excuse for her behavior, but PCH in that area between Newland and Magnolia has had K-rail down the center median for a long time due to hi-speed car crashes in the past. There's no ability to turn around unless you go down to the Magnolia Street intersection and turn-around at that location, either a U-turn or through the beach parking lot entrance area; you don't need to go through the parking fee kiosk to do it. It sounds like she has an unofficial 'professional criminal' rap-sheet and should get a stiff sentence in prison.

I'm happy that it looks like they're going to throw the book at her. Now we just have to see what she plea deals down to.