COSTA MESA – A student driver and a person serving as a driving instructor were blaming each other for crashing into another vehicle and a transformer on Thursday evening, in a collision that resulted in another instructor trying to help the driver flee, police said.

Officers responding to reports of a crash shortly before 6 p.m. in the 600 block of West 19th Street found that a vehicle driven by a student driver had traveled across a nearby intersection, sideswiped a vehicle in a McDonald’s parking lot and crashed into a high-voltage transformer, Costa Mesa police Sgt. Matt Grimmond said.

The person who was acting as a driving instructor for the student driver involved in the crash was not properly licensed to be teaching people to drive, Grimmond said. Before police arrived, the unlicensed instructor called a licensed driving instructor who was at a nearby DMV location to pick up the student driver, Grimmond added.

The licensed driving instructor drove over in a vehicle that had several other student drivers in it, Grimmond said, and picked up the student driver involved in the crash. The unlicensed driving instructor was left at the scene of the crash, he added.

Officers spotted the vehicle with the licensed driving instructor and the student drivers in the 2100 block of Harbor Boulevard, recognizing it from a description provided by witnesses to the crash.

The licensed driving instructor was cited for having too many people in his vehicle, Grimmond said. The student driver involved in the crash was cited for leaving the scene of an accident.

The student driver and the unlicensed driving instructor blamed each other for the crash, Grimmond said. The vehicle had two sets of gas pedals and brakes, and each said the other had accelerated.

Authorities did not identify the people who were cited or the company the two instructors were working for.

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