::stop::

this has got to stop.

A wrong-way driver has been charged with vehicular manslaughter after he drove past a CHP officer who tried to stop him Tuesday night and slammed head-on into a another vehicle on Highway 101 in Burlingame, according to the California Highway Patrol.

A 27-year-old man from San Francisco, identified as Nathan Cistone, was killed when the driver of an errant pickup truck struck his car at about 11:20 p.m.

Police said they got a call at 11:18 p.m. about a green 2000 Ford Ranger traveling southbound in the northbound lanes of 101 near Millbrae Avenue. A CHP officer in the northbound lanes near Third Avenue in San Mateo -- well south of the wrong-way driver -- flipped on his lights and siren and began to weave across all lanes of traffic in an attempt to slow it down and get the errant driver stopped safely.

But instead of stopping when he came within view of the flashing lights, the Ranger driver roared past the patrol car in the center median. The officer then got off at the next exit, and turned south in the southbound lanes in an attempt to get ahead of the errant driver and stop him.

But by then it was too late, said CHP spokesman Christian Oliver, because 42-year-old Robert Paul Nebel of Brisbane had already crashed head-on into a tan Saturn sedan north of the Peninsula Avenue exit, causing fatal injuries to the San Francisco man.

Jessica Michaels, who worked with the victim at a San Francisco landscape architect firm, said Cistone, a graphic designer, had gone through some personal struggles in his life and, in recent years, had come into his own as a person.

"It's mind-boggling that this could happen," she said, adding that Cistone was planning to speak about his faith and his life at a Universalist church today. "He was so full of optimism."

Oliver said drugs and alcohol did not appear to be a factor in the collision, but that Nebel had made no statement about why he was driving the wrong way. Nebel was evaluated and released at San Francisco General Hospital, then jailed on suspicion of felony vehicular manslaughter.

Several other collisions also resulted from the wrong-way incident. A passenger in one of those vehicles required medical attention.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call CHP Officer Walsh at (650) 369-6261.

yet another victim of senseless tragedy.

i'd like to know when i will stop watching my friends grieve unexpected & inexcusable tragedies as loved ones suffer untimely passings.

i'll stop myself here because i always feel so ineffective writing about these sort of things.