A Way to Cut Ortega’s Heavy Toll

If the Legislature moved as fast as the speeders on Ortega Highway, the California Highway Patrol could already be using radar to help reduce speed as well as the high rates of accidents and deaths along the scenic but deadly route.

Some progress, however, was made last Monday when the state Senate approved a resolution introduced by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) that calls for the CHP to begin using radar on the state highway that runs 25 miles from Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano in Orange County to Grand Avenue near Lake Elsinore in Riverside County.

The Assembly should waste no time in giving the resolution its approval, too.

Anything to do with radar faces an uncertain fate in the Legislature, which has traditionally resisted its use statewide. The California Legislature, in fact, is the only one in the nation that still refuses to allow its highway patrol to use radar statewide to help reduce speed and the accidents and deaths related to it.

Passage of Bergeson’s measure by the Senate is an encouraging note that some legislators at least seem willing to allow its limited use on some of the more dangerous roads where radar could make a significant difference in reducing accidents, injuries and deaths. Ortega Highway certainly qualifies on that basis.

CHP statistics show that the accident rate on the rural, winding road is about 150% higher than on comparable state highways. Last year the agency reported 16 deaths and 277 injuries in a 22-month period, an appalling total for so short a stretch of roadway.

That’s the major reason why Bergeson, Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the CHP are anxious to introduce radar there.

It’s also a compelling reason for the Legislature to approve Bergeson’s resolution.