California has opened 2026 with yet another deadly road accident, underscoring a grim pattern that first drew attention last year. An Indian American couple were killed in the latest crash, adding to a growing list of fatal roadway incidents that plagued the state throughout 2025 and now appear to be spilling into the new year.
According to multiple reports, the victims have been identified as Krishna Kishore, a software engineer, and his wife, Asha. The couple were killed in the early hours of Sunday when a truck, allegedly driven by an intoxicated driver and traveling in the wrong direction, slammed into their vehicle.
The couple were reportedly traveling with their two children at the time of the crash.
READ: Who is Rajinder Kumar? ‘Illegal’ Indian trucker arrested in crash that killed newlyweds (
The impact left both adults with critical injuries, and they were later pronounced dead, according to reports. The couple’s children were rushed to a nearby hospital and are currently undergoing treatment.
Kishore and his wife were originally from Palakollu in Andhra Pradesh, India, and their deaths have struck a deep chord both back home and within the Indian American community in the United States. The tragedy comes just days after another devastating crash in California claimed the lives of two young women from Telangana, highlighting a troubling pattern of fatal accidents involving nationals and NRIs on U.S. roads.
The women, Meghana Rani Pullakhandam, 25, and Bhavana Kadiyala, 24, were childhood friends from Mahabubabad district who had recently earned master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Dayton. While they were based in Ohio and actively searching for jobs, they had traveled to California for a vacation with friends. In late December, their trip ended in disaster when their car reportedly lost control on a curve along Alabama Hills Road and plunged into a gorge. The incident, reported by the Times of India, sent shockwaves through their families and communities, coming just weeks before the latest fatal crash involving Kishore and his wife.
Together, the incidents have renewed concerns about road safety and the growing toll of deadly accidents across California. Details of the incident are still emerging, but the tragedy has sent shockwaves through the Indian American community and renewed questions about road safety on California’s increasingly dangerous highways.
After a year defined by a series of high-profile and largely preventable crashes, this latest tragedy underscores a hard reality: the danger did not disappear with the turn of the calendar. By mid to late 2025, California had already come under growing scrutiny for deadly roadway incidents and questions surrounding how driving licenses, particularly commercial ones, are issued.
The debate intensified in October when the White House publicly criticized California following a fatal eight-vehicle crash in Ontario. The incident, which killed three people, involved an undocumented Indian-born truck driver, Jashanpreet Singh. Just weeks earlier, another deadly crash in Florida had drawn national attention after the Trump administration said the truck driver involved was living in the U.S. illegally.
Since those incidents, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly raised concerns about eligibility standards for commercial driver’s licenses, with both him and President Donald Trump pointing to California’s licensing policies as part of the problem.
The criticism has been amplified by a separate August crash in Fort Pierce, Florida, where an Indian-born driver, Harjinder Singh, was accused of causing a collision that killed three people. Authorities said Singh had entered the U.S. illegally in 2018 and later obtained a commercial driver’s license in California.