Ryo Uchimiya, a 51-year-old sushi chef at Nobu Malibu, was sitting in a car parked on the shoulder of Pacific Coast Highway when a teenage driver veered from the roadway and struck him, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
The crash happened in the 22600 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Calif., just before 7 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. John Addington said the collision with Uchimiya’s car came at about 6:50 a.m. and that the Range Rover’s driver appeared to have been speeding. Uchimiya, a longtime chef at the high-end Japanese restaurant known for its celebrity clientele, had arrived early for work, as he often did, and was napping.
A 16-year-old boy was identified by authorities as the driver; he survived the crash, remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators. Officials said he did not appear to be under the influence, and no other injuries were reported.
Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records show the Range Rover involved is leased to English film composer Harry Gregson-Williams, according to The California Post, which said the teen driver’s connection to Gregson-Williams was unclear. “This family is grieving just as the other family,” Gregson-Williams told The California Post.
As of Oct. 6, no one had been taken into custody. Investigators had not said what caused the teen to leave the roadway, and it is unclear whether he will face charges.
What the Video Shows
A surf shop on the other side of the street captured the moments before the wreck on its security system. Surveillance footage from the store appeared to show a Range Rover drifting out of the right lane and toward the shoulder of Pacific Coast Highway, then plowing into a parked sedan. The painted stripe that separates the traffic lane from the shoulder — the fog line — was crossed by the SUV before it hit the chef’s car. The Range Rover was gray and was traveling eastbound, and Uchimiya’s vehicle was on the eastbound shoulder, according to the sheriff’s department.
The surf shop sits across the highway from the crash site, and its owner, former Malibu mayor Jefferson Wagner, handed over the store’s security recording, which appears to show the Range Rover drifting toward the shoulder in the seconds before it hit. “He was asleep,” Wagner said. “He gets here early and takes a snooze and then goes to work on time.” A witness said the teenage driver appeared stunned in the aftermath of the crash.
Uchimiya was pronounced dead at the scene. The Los Angeles medical examiner’s office identified him, and the office ruled his death an accident caused by multiple blunt force injuries. Four vehicles were ultimately involved, after Uchimiya’s car was pushed into other unoccupied parked vehicles.
Mourning at Nobu Malibu
Nobu employed Uchimiya for 25 years, and colleagues credited him with helping build the Malibu restaurant’s operation. Staff there have left notes and flowers outside the restaurant in his memory. The restaurant’s manager said the “family of staffers” there were doing whatever they could to support Uchimiya’s relatives. “Obviously, it’s been a very, very difficult day for so many people,” the manager said.
A memorial has sprung up near the spot where Uchimiya died, and origami cranes now hang there. Wagner visited the memorial.
A Notorious Coastal Route
Pacific Coast Highway runs 21 miles through Malibu, a stretch that ranks among the state’s deadliest and most notorious roads and that has averaged roughly four crash-related fatalities a year over the past decade. Wagner, who has leased his storefront along the route for years, said he has counted 10 deaths in that time.
An October 2023 crash drew intense scrutiny to the highway. A BMW driven by a 24-year-old Malibu man at an estimated 104 mph in a 45-mph zone slammed into three parked cars, authorities say, and those cars then hit and fatally injured four Alpha Phi sorority sisters from Pepperdine University. That driver, Fraser Bohm, faces multiple counts of murder and vehicular manslaughter. Officials responded to the case with plans for tougher safety measures, including cameras and steeper fines for speeding.
Fires in January 2025 destroyed homes and businesses in the area and scattered construction zones and reduced speed limits across the route. Conditions along the corridor have grown more complicated since then. Malibu, after delays, is set to begin a warning phase for new speed cameras along the highway, and city officials hope the step curbs the kind of speeds investigators are now examining. Preliminary testing alone, the city said, generated about 100,000 speeding violations across four cameras in nine days, from Sept. 16 to 24.
