Car Crash Scams; Easing L.A.'s Traffic
COOPER: Well, there are a lot of addictions in Los Angeles. Driving is definitely one of them. Not everyone follows the rules of the road. Now, every year thousands of collisions are reported, including those that weren't accidents at all. They were actually staged. An estimated $14 billion a year scam, with doctors and lawyers cashing in. Peter Viles investigates.</s>PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Miguel Perez works hard for a living. He sometimes drives a truck. Almost two years ago on an L.A. freeway he did something he thought would get him fired. It started when the car ahead of him suddenly stopped.</s>MIGUEL PEREZ, STAGED CRASH VICTIM: He slammed on his brake and I tried swerving to the right to miss him, but I clipped him in the back.</s>VILES: Next, Perez did what anyone would do.</s>PEREZ: I asked the guy, why did you stop? And his answer was that he didn't want to hit the car in front of him.</s>VILES: And then Perez realized he would probably lose his job over the accident.</s>PEREZ: Usually, when you hit somebody from behind you're always as fault.</s>VILES: What authorities later told him was that he'd been set up, victimized by a staged crash technique so common there's a name for it.</s>MARTIN GONZALEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE: What we call what we call the swoop and squat. And that's probably the most dangerous because those are typically orchestrated on the freeway or your busier surface streets.</s>VILES: There's a swoop and squat demonstration, staged by the insurance industry in which the green car is the victim. Now let's watch in slow motion. The gray car is the swoop car. It swoops in, causing the black car, the squat car, to slam on the brakes, causing the green car, the victim car to rear-end it.</s>ELEANOR BIGOLSKI, AUTO INSURANCE FRAUD DIVISION: I've seen men targeted, women being targeted. Truck drivers being targeted. Female truck drives, male truck drivers -- I've seen it all.</s>VILES: Then come the false insurance claims, usually for back and neck injuries from several passengers in the squat car.</s>GONZALEZ: It's all money. There's a lot of money to be made. In California alone, it's billions of dollars every year going to fraudulent claims.</s>VILES: The numbers are staggering. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimates $14 billion a year in auto insurance fraud, much of it from staged crashes. And they can be deadly. Authorities say these were staged crashes -- Long Beach, California, 1997, an innocent family of three burned to death. Queens, New York, 2003, a 71-year-old grandmother, crushed to death. And Lawrence, Massachusetts, 2003, this time the victim, a 64- year-old woman was allegedly part of the fraud ring, but didn't survive the wreck. Now, Miguel Perez was lucky. He wasn't injured and whistle- blower spotted the fraud in time to save his job.</s>PEREZ: I was stunned when she told me that it was staged.</s>VILES: So what can do you to avoid becoming a victim? Well, first of all, don't tailgate. Keep a safe distance. (on camera): If you feel like you are being watched too closely by another driver or followed by another driver, you need to pull back and change lanes, even if that means getting off the freeway. Peter Viles for CNN, Los Angeles.</s>COOPER: Well, avoiding staged or real accident in L.A. is not easy. After all, this is a city built along freeways. More often than not, those roads grind to a halt, creating miles of traffic and endless aggravation. Some see a simple solution, however, to the problem. CNN's Tom Foreman has that angle of the story.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if you're right there at about San Fernando and Mission, it's and injury crash...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To the right shoulder...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's starting to slow here at...</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rush hour in Los Angeles lasts from 5:00 until 9:00 -- that's 5:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night. And this is coming your way. Especially if you live in a large city, where studies show delays already devour 47 hours of your life every year. But not if Mark Pisano can help it.</s>MARK PISANO, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION: We need to think differently how we grow and develop.</s>FOREMAN: He runs a southern California association, working to make bad traffic better.</s>PISANO: Each city cannot be an island unto themselves. They're now impacting on their neighbors. And furthermore, within large cities, the communities are impacting one another.</s>FOREMAN: At first glance, solving L.A.'s problem of too many people, about 18 million, and too little highway, would seem to be simple. Solution one -- add more lanes. But experience has shown when highways expand, businesses and neighborhoods expand right along with them, eating the extra roadway as fast as it's built. Solution two -- encourage carpools. Good idea. Problem is, carpool lanes are faster. So drivers think they can live further from their jobs. That promotes sprawl and ultimately more cars coming from afar. Solution three -- more public transit. Another nice idea, but in most cities, the number of new buses and trains it would take to make a difference is staggering. Just ask Planning Director Hasan Egrata (ph). HASAN EGARTA (ph),</s>PLANNING DIRECTOR: Out of 48 million daily trips...</s>FOREMAN (on camera): 48 million daily trips?</s>EGARTA (ph): ...we have in this region, we have about 2 percent in the public transportation.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): So what can work? Well, traffic planning experts say, maybe this -- more planned communities built around jobs. Houses, shopping and recreation, all in one relatively small place. Maybe this -- more driver education. (on camera): This allows people to test things that previously they could never test. Right?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): They want commuters to see what computer models now show so well. How even one car stopped by an accident or a poor maintenance can have an enormous impact.</s>PISANO: About 50 percent of our congestion could be solved if we had drivers doing everything perfectly.</s>FOREMAN: That's right, 50 percent of congestion could be ended, not with better roads, but with better drivers. And maybe this -- they want you -- business people, commuters, casual drivers -- to pay more for the congestion you cause through toll roads, fees on new housing developments or shopping areas. They hope this, along with soaring gas prices and tedious traffic jams will finally convince you to change the way you live.</s>EGARTA (ph): They have to live in more dense areas around transit stations. They have to use transit.</s>FOREMAN (on camera): Yes, but I don't want to do that. Nobody wants to do that.</s>EGARTA (ph): And I contend that if people try, they might like it.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): Or maybe not. As it is, over the next 20 year, L.A.'s highways are expected to pick up another 6 million drivers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...will start to slow here just south of the 134 and from that point stay slow...</s>FOREMAN: Tom Foreman, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>COOPER: But traffic isn't the only problem in L.A. and across country. There are many other issues going on. And well, celebrities aren't afraid to tell you about them again and again. That story coming up. Plus, Mentos and Diet Coke, an explosive combination. We've seen the Internet video. It is sweeping the country right now. I'll try the experiment myself. Live from Los Angeles, you're watching 360.