Jury Supports Phone System for Freeways

The Orange County Grand Jury recommended Thursday that emergency telephones be installed on freeways in the county, saying the safety and convenience were worth the estimated overall cost of $2 million.

The grand jury also asked the state to provide funds to install, operate and maintain the phones on county freeways.

In Los Angeles County, where freeway telephones have been in place for more than 20 years, the California Highway Patrol reported receiving 52,800 calls per month last year, most of them from people involved in accidents or requiring other assistance, the grand jury said.

16,000 Calls a Month

Based on the Los Angeles statistics, the panel estimated that an Orange County system would generate 16,000 calls a month. Los Angeles County spaces the phones every quarter of a mile on its 502 miles of freeways. The grand jury suggested putting phones at half-mile intervals on Orange County’s 133 miles of freeways.

The panel said the annual operating cost of a solar cellular phone system, the type jurors suggested, would be $388,000, but added that even that figure could be reduced.

Heinz Heckeroth, state Department of Transportation district director, said that Los Angeles was the only county with a full-scale emergency phone system, though other locales might have scattered phones in rural areas. He added that Ventura and San Diego counties were considering emergency phone systems.

The Orange County Grand Jury said the Los Angeles system “is simple to operate, dependable, easy to maintain and well worth the cost.”

Thomas J. Kehoe, the jury’s foreman, said in an interview that the panel’s report was not prompted by any particular accident or breakdown on an Orange County freeway but was “just one of those obvious things.”

“Although (emergency phone installation) has been studied, and everybody wants it, it was just our wanting to throw in our support” that led to the report, Kehoe said.

Kent Milton, a spokesman for the Highway Patrol in Sacramento, said the phones saved motorists from having to walk off a freeway, “which is never a very good idea,” or to wait possibly lengthy periods for a passing CHP officer to provide help.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) has introduced a bill calling for the state to install freeway telephones throughout California. Another bill has been introduced to have the state install emergency call boxes along San Diego County freeways.