It was a fatal accident waiting to happen.

Maayan Jones was killed this summer when he was struck by an oncoming pickup truck as he biked toward the south entrance of Mount Diablo State Park on a route tens of thousands of Bay Area cyclists traverse each year.

The 46-year-old insurance industry financial analyst and Novato resident leaves behind a wife, Valentina, and three sons, Sasha, age 10, Jordan, 7, and Ben, 4.

“Maayan was an avid outdoorsman who loved backpacking, camping, mountain biking, fishing, surfing and skateboarding,” according to his obituary. “He enjoyed sports and loved coaching kids’ soccer and baseball.”

He might still be alive today if the California Department of Parks and Recreation hadn’t ignored a 1992 court order to maintain the road where Jones collided 27 years later with the front of a 2007 Chevrolet Avalanche.

A photo of the black four-door vehicle, a cross between an SUV and a pickup, shows a crumpled hood and broken-out headlight, providing a chilling indication of the force of the impact.

Related Articles Video: The dangerous road to Mount Diablo where Bay Area cyclist was killed The California Highway Patrol hasn’t yet provided its accident report on the June 26 collision. But it doesn’t take a crash-scene investigator to realize an accident like this was inevitable.

Jones died on one of two routes to Mount Diablo — the southern approach used annually, even by the park system’s inadequate records, by well over 50,000 motor vehicles and cyclists to reach the road up the 3,849-foot peak.

The approach road is called Mount Diablo Scenic Boulevard. It’s no boulevard. Rather, it’s a substandard, exceptionally narrow street, with tight blind curves and no paved shoulder.

On sunny days, motorists and cyclists can struggle to see the roadway and oncoming traffic because of overhanging trees that create deep shade alternating with bright sunlight.

Nevertheless, unlike on the mountain, there are no signs warning motorists to use caution because of the upcoming dangers. There is no center line painted on the asphalt. The posted 25 mph speed limit is far faster than the road can be safely navigated.

In the stretch where the Chevy Avalanche ended Jones’ life, a parallel tall plaster wall at the street’s edge and a sloped roadway tend to keep motorists steering down the middle of the pavement when they should be keeping right at the blind-curve approach.

The Chevy belonged to an employee for a contractor working up the street at Steve Moore’s house. The driver could not be reached for comment.

Moore has had lots of close calls, in his car and on his bike, in the area where Jones was killed. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner than this because of the way cars and bikes intersect on those corners.”

Mount Diablo Scenic Boulevard is owned by Moore and the other residents along the street. But, back in 1931, the corporation that then controlled the land granted the state a 60-foot-wide “perpetual right of way,” providing access to the park entrance.

Sixty-one years later, in 1992, after a resident sued, Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Robert Law ruled that “the State of California has a duty to maintain the roadway easement in proportion to its use.” He ordered the state and property owners to meet with an arbitrator to determine each party’s financial responsibility.

But that never happened, according to Hal Seibert, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the resident and who also lives along the road. “Nobody had the energy to bring in all the people to do it,” he told me recently.

Although most traffic on the road heads for the park, the state was never really interested in maintaining it. That was clear in 2012, when the Amgen Tour of California announced plans to include the mountain in America’s premier bicycle race.

A column I wrote at the time warning that the broken pavement on Mount Diablo Scenic Boulevard could become an international embarrassment prompted state officials to spend $103,000 to repave the worst half-mile stretch.

It might be the only meaningful repair the state has done on the private road. And, as soon as the Amgen Tour was over, so too was state officials’ concern about maintaining the road.

“If elected state officials don’t act,” I wrote, “they need to be prepared for voter/taxpayer wrath when someone finally sues after an accident.”

State parks officials didn’t care, says Roland Gaebert, who was Mount Diablo park superintendent from 2008-12. He recalls his efforts to convince superiors in Sacramento to negotiate a road maintenance agreement with the neighbors “all fell on deaf ears.”

Gaebert recalls, “I was asking for help. I was saying this section of road needs to be addressed. I was afraid someday something bad was going to happen. It happened.”

Seven years after Gaebert retired, Jones rode his bike around a curve, and the black Chevy struck him head-on. They collided near the bottom of two approaching descents. Although the state’s easement is 60 feet wide, the pavement there is just 16 feet across. The standard width of a two-lane road is 24 feet.

Gloria Sandoval, a spokeswoman for California State Parks, wouldn’t directly answer questions this month about the road condition or the 1992 arbitration order.

“California State Parks is working on this important issue,” she wrote in an email. “The department believes it has shared maintenance responsibility over Mount Diablo Scenic Boulevard. The proportion of responsibility is unknown at this time.”

Eighty-eight years after the state acquired the right of way, park officials are still trying to figure that out.