A motorcyclist suffered fatal injuries Monday afternoon in a three-vehicle accident on southbound Highway 101 in Santa Barbara, according to authorities.
The California Highway Patrol, Santa Barbara City Fire Department, Montecito Fire Protection District and American Medical Response responded to the crash near the southbound Olive Mill Road exit at about 3:20 p.m.
A few additional details about the collision were released Tuesday morning but the motorcyclist’s name was not released, pending notification of his family, CHP Officer Jon Gutierrez said.
Three vehicles were involved in the collision, which happened between the Cabrillo Boulevard and Olive Mill Road exits.
No arrests were made and there is no suspicion drugs or alcohol were involved in the collision, the CHP said.
The motorcyclist driving a 2015 Yamaha was identified only as a 27-year-old man from Norco in Riverside County.
He suffered severe injuries “which required immediate medical attention” and was transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, the CHP said.
The other two drivers involved were Patrick Cockrill, 56, of Long Beach, who was driving a Chevrolet truck, and Eric Davis, 36, of Visalia, who was driving a Kenworth box truck, the CHP said.
The collision is still under investigation.
Initial reports from the CHP said the collision involved a motorcycle and a big-rig truck and that the person suffered major injuries, but CHP incident information later changed that to a fatality.
“It was a motorcycle versus a truck, not a full semi but a smaller bobcat truck, and another pickup truck was involved somehow,” City Fire Battalion Chief Jim McCoy said after responding to the collision.
He had no details about the victim and said emergency responders were “working on him when I got there.” The patient was transported to the hospital, McCoy said.
The collision happened on southbound Highway 101 just north of where the three freeway lanes transition to two lanes, north of the Olive Mill Road offramp.
Two of the three lanes were closed to traffic for about an hour and a half, and surface roads in the area of the Andree Clark Bird Refuge and East Beach were “all jammed up” with cars, McCoy said.
Shortly before 4 p.m. Monday, Caltrans officials tweeted that the two-vehicle crash “is backing up traffic for miles into #santabarbara this pm commute so avoid route.”
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.