Lindsay Lohan blames paparazzi for latest car crash

Lindsay Lohan. Picture / Reuters

LOS ANGELES - Four months after a photographer was charged with ramming his car into hers, teen actress Lindsay Lohan was slightly injured in a second traffic accident that her publicist blamed on the paparazzi.

But eyewitness accounts published by the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets suggested that Lohan, star of Herbie: Fully Loaded and Mean Girls, was driving too fast when the accident took place on Tuesday evening.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said no fault had been established in the accident and that the collision remained under investigation.

Lohan's black Mercedes convertible collided with a van that was making a turn in front of her as she drove in fashionable Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office said on Wednesday.

Both Lohan and a female passenger were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where they were treated for minor injuries, and the driver of the van was taken to the hospital with "moderate" injuries, spokeswoman Sgt. Diane Hecht said.

Hecht said she had no information on whether photographers who were said to be taking Lohan's picture while she shopped and dined a short time earlier had been involved in the accident.

The latest accident occurred just blocks away from where Lohan made headlines with a May 31 car crash involving a photographer who police said rammed his vehicle into her car while chasing the actress. In that case, the photographer was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

"This is another example of the paparazzi endangering citizens, both Ms. Lohan and the other driver in the collision," her publicist, Leslie Sloan, told the Los Angeles Times. "As the matter is still under investigation, we cannot comment further at this time." But a number of people who saw the accident told the newspaper that Lohan appeared to be driving too fast.

"She was just flying down the street," said Katherine Starr, 50, of New Orleans, who was on the sidewalk.

"People crawl along there, but she had to be going 50 or 60 miles per hour."

- REUTERS