Highway death may be linked to Caltrans truck’s cap

A metal object that crashed through an 82year-old man’s windshield and killed him as he drove on Highway 101 last week on the Peninsula was a water cap that somehow detached from a California Department of Transportation truck going the opposite direction on the freeway, officials said Monday.

The Caltrans water truck, used to spray down dust and debris at construction sites, was heading south on 101 between assignments, a spokesman for the department said. A metal water cap probably broke free from the truck Friday afternoon near Palo Alto and smashed through the windshield of the victim’s white minivan on the northbound side of the highway, said Officer Art Montiel, a California Highway Patrol spokesman.

“Everything’s under investigation,” Montiel said, “but at this time we believe this came from the Caltrans truck. We don’t know how, we don’t know why.”

The cap — about the size of a baseball and weighing 2 to 3 pounds — hit the driver, Louis Schaefer of Mountain View, in the neck and caused him to crash into the center divide, Montiel said. Schaefer continued along the highway for a short distance before coming to a stop. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Shortly after the incident, the Caltrans driver, whose name was not released, realized a tire on his truck was blown out and pulled over on the side of the highway near the University Avenue exit that leads toward Palo Alto. At the time, the driver wasn’t aware an object from the truck was involved in a fatal crash on the other side of the highway, said Montiel, who called the entire incident “highly unusual.”

Schaefer was an electrical engineer who spent most of his career at SRI International, a nonprofit research and development center in Menlo Park, according to a statement his family released Monday.

“The Schaefer family is grateful to the drivers who pulled over to try to help our father, Louis Schaefer,” the statement reads. “We are also grateful for the compassion and professionalism of the California Highway Patrol and the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office.”

Caltrans officials said they are cooperating with the investigation and offered condolences to Schaefer’s family and friends.