County OKs Using Radar for Speed Crackdown Along Kanan Road

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday authorized use of radar to enforce a 50-m.p.h. speed limit on Agoura’s Kanan Road, the twisting mountain route where accidents have killed five people in the last month.

Officials voted unanimously to purchase radar units and allow California Highway Patrol officers to use them. The action came after Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich proposed a one-year test of the devices on an 11-mile stretch that has claimed nine lives in the past two years.

As part of the experiment, radar will also be used by the CHP on the Pacific Coast Highway, where there have been 21 traffic deaths in two years. The CHP will also be asked to assign more officers to Kanan Road.

The move marked an about-face by Antonovich, who previously opposed the use of radar, saying it would reduce police patrols visible on the popular beach route.

The board vote was hailed Tuesday night by 250 Agoura-area residents who rallied beneath oak trees a few hundred yards off Kanan Road. But there were groans from the crowd when Capt. Richard Kerri, commander of the CHP’s Woodland Hills office, warned that it will take up to four months to begin using the devices.

Kerri said CHP officials in Sacramento must also approve the use of the radar, then train officers to use it. County officials would then solicit bids, buy the radar guns and perform the speed surveys of the roadway mandated by traffic courts.

James C. Iamurri, an aide to Antonovich, said one radar unit would be purchased for Kanan Road and a second one for the Pacific Coast Highway. Leaders of homeowner groups said they will post large “Radar in Use” signs along the road, which is known as Kanan-Dume Road on the Malibu side of the mountain.