By WENDY STEWART
Beat Staff Writer

A Hayward man in his 50s hauling a container of Asian pears across the upper deck of the Bay Bridge during the early morning hours Monday became the first fatality stemming from the troublesome bypass curve installed over the Labor Day weekend.

Official and witness accounts of how the man died are horrific.

Drivers in other cars crossing the bridge at 3:30 a.m. say that the big-rig driver was speeding in the far right lane and hit the S-curve too fast. He skidded against the cement K-rail barrier for a while until the Asian pears he was carrying in the container section of the truck shifted from one side to the other.

The shift caused the big-rig to topple over the cement barrier and off the bridge, the California Highway Patrol said.

The truck plunged 200 feet to Yerba Buena Island below where the impact eviscerated the truck and ignited a brief fire that was put out before San Francisco Fire crews got on scene. First responders found the pulverized big rig pointing in the opposite direction from the way it was travelling.

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The CHP said it’s likely that the steep fall caused the truck to twist and turn while it was in the air.

The driver of the truck, whose name has not yet been released, died on impact.

Monday morning’s fatal collision marked the 43rd accident reported on the new S-curve section of the bridge since it opened to through traffic after Labor Day — when construction crews chiseled out an old, straight portion of the bridge and slid in a connector piece that diverted traffic around construction for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge.

The collision was also the first instance where someone died because of the sudden twist in the bridge road-deck.

Caltrans says that in all 43 incidents, speed was the factor that likely caused the collisions.

The posted speed limit for the span is 50 miles per hour, but at the S-curve, the speed dips to 40 miles per hour — a drop needed to safely negotiate the bend.

But while additional safety mechanisms — like radar-equipped signage, better reflector strips and additional warning signs — were promised in the wake of yesterday’s fatal crash and another high-profile big-rig collision along the S-curve, critics are asking just how safe the S-curve is for motorists.

They’re questioning everything from the design of the curve, why additional safety mechanisms weren’t put into place when the S-curve was put into service, and the height of the cement K-rail that didn’t keep Monday’s big-rig from toppling off the bridge.

Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a civil engineering professor at UC Berkeley, tells KPIX-TV that he’s never seen a bridge with such a sharp turn in the middle of it.

And such a diversion can create hazardous driving conditions when motorists are used to zipping across the bridge at 50 miles per hour from end to end.

Just one look at the upper deck of the bridge at the S-curve shows evidence of drivers still doing that, paying little attention to the reduced speed limit.

Motorists who cross the bridge on a daily basis point to the abundant skid marks over the S-curve’s sleek white concrete pavement indicating that drivers are screeching through the section at high speeds, often losing control and swerving into other lanes.

Officials at Caltrans said Monday that they believe that the bridge is safe to cross and that if drivers slow down to the 40 mile per hour posted speed limit through the S-section of the span, they’re confident that accidents can be avoided.

They noted that 16 million vehicles passed through the S-curve section since it opened, and of those trips, only 43 accidents have taken place.

They acknowledged the loss of life from Monday’s big-rig accident and promised the safety improvements — including more signs and speed monitors — would go up soon.

For the agency, it’s been a particularly tough few weeks. First, a Safeway truck hauling groceries flipped over and blocked four of the five lanes for hours on the upper deck at the S-curve on October 15.

Then on Oct. 27, a repair to a cracked eyebar put into place over the Labor Day weekend failed amid high winds, fell onto passing cars below and prompted an unprecedented 6-day emergency closure of the bridge to fix the failed fix.

Now this.

The litany of problems has caught the attention of state lawmakers, who have already scheduled a January 12, 2010 hearing in Sacramento to discuss the safety of the bridge.

Both Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) believe that it’s no coincidence that all these accidents are happening on a specific segment of the bridge.

They want accountability, and hope to probe Caltrans and ask for answers about the troublesome S-curve and the fallen eyebar fix that nearly crushed two Canadian tourists when it came crashing onto their car while crossing the bridge.

“I think the public is frustrated,” Simitian told KCBS Radio.

E-mail Wendy Stewart at californiabeat@gmail.com. Join the California Beat on Facebook, and get breaking news headlines, story alerts and previews when you follow us on Twitter.