Piecemeal Radar

Last November, Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley began asking the state Legislature to allow the California Highway Patrol to use radar on Ortega Highway--the winding, scenic and deadly route that runs from Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano to southwest Riverside County near Lake Elsinore.

In December the county board joined him in urging the Legislature to authorize the radar in an effort to put some brakes on speeding drivers along the 25-mile route.

Now state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) has introduced a resolution to formalizethe pleas of the supervisors. It should be granted without delay.

The county board has already worked out agreements with the Highway Patrol for the use of radar in the unincorporated county communities of North Tustin and Mission Viejo. Other counties have similar arrangements. But because Ortega Highway is a state road, legislative approval is needed.

There is precedent for such approval. The CHP is using radar on another state highway, California 126, in Ventura County. That pilot project will run until December, but last year’s report that radar helped reduce the accident rate on the Ventura road by about 20% is consistent with the decreases in accidents and fatalities that have resulted in virtually every instance in which radar has been employed.

Ortega Highway (California 74), one of the most dangerous stretches of roadway in the state, needs the same kind of life-saving help. According to CHP statistics, the accident rate for Ortega Highway is 146% higher than the statewide average for similar highways. Since 1984, there have been 16 deaths and nearly 300 injuries on the short but deadly stretch, with speed being cited by CHP officers as one of the main causes of the unusually high accident rate.

It’s unfortunate that there has to be such a piecemeal approach to the use of radar on state highways in California, which is the only state in the nation that still refuses to allow its highway patrol to use the proven safety benefits of radar statewide. That, however, should not stop the state from allowing its use on Ortega Highway, where local officials and legislators want it and common sense and safety considerations dictate that it be employed to save lives that would surely be lost without it.