A San José man was sentenced to 60 days in county jail for lying to his insurance company after he brake-checked a semi-truck on the freeway in a fit of road rage, prosecutors said.
Ken Pham Tran, 53, was convicted last month of felony insurance fraud, felony vandalism and reckless driving, a misdemeanor, stemming from a road rage incident on Highway 101 in January 2025, according to the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said Tran thought the truck had cut him off and became angry, catching up in his Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and then pulling in front of it and twice slamming on his brakes. The semi-truck driver tried to change lanes to avoid the Jeep, but Tran maneuvered the car in front of the truck a third time and brake-checked him again.
Dashcam video of the incidentshowed traffic slowing down far ahead of the white Jeep as it stopped abruptly in front of the semi, causing the truck to rear-end the vehicle.
“Road rage. Reckless driving. Insurance fraud. This person made a lot of bad decisions,” Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen said in a prepared statement.
Tran could not immediately be reached for comment.
After the crash, Tran called 911 and reported the truck driver for a hit-and-run, lying to police that he was stopped in traffic when he was hit, prosecutors said. They added that Tran also failed to disclose the real cause of the crash when he filed a claim with Progressive Insurance.
But Tran wasn’t the only one who called 911 about the crash.
Another driver had called police to report they had to swerve out of the way of a white Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that was “driving recklessly and brake-checking a semi-truck on the 101 Freeway,” the California Department of Insurance wrote in a news release.
The witness told authorities it didn’t appear that the semi-truck had an opportunity to avoid the crash.
A judge also ordered Tran to pay $1,200 in restitution to Progressive Insurance and just over $3,000 to Bill Jacobsen Trucking, according to the district attorney’s office.
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