OXNARD : Driver Leads CHP on 4-County Chase

An elderly man spotted driving erratically in Oxnard led California Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase across four Southern California counties Tuesday, authorities said.

Officers finally stopped the man when he came to a section of southbound Interstate 5 near Oceanside that was closed because of a would-be suicide victim threatening to jump from an overpass, authorities said.

CHP officers first spotted the car near the Rice Avenue exit of the Ventura Freeway at 12:55 p.m. after receiving reports of a white Ford Taurus driving erratically and reaching speeds in excess of 100 m.p.h., authorities said.

The chase proceeded south on the San Diego Freeway through Los Angeles County, then into Orange County and finally into San Diego County, CHP Officer Tito Gomez said.

Were it not for another emergency, which closed the freeway between a rest area near Camp Pendleton and Mission Avenue in Oceanside, the chase would have continued, CHP Officer Phil Konstantin said.

There, the unidentified driver, believed to be between 70 and 80 years old, could go no farther, “only because there was nowhere else to go--he, like everyone else, was at a standstill,” Konstantin said. Officers apprehended him at 3:37 p.m.

No one was injured in the chase.