Panel Urges Upgrading of Freeway Call Boxes

If you are caught on a freeway and need to use an emergency roadside telephone call box, chances are that the system will work. But an informal survey conducted by the California Highway Patrol has turned up some problems: no dial tones at some phones, access blocked by construction zones, static so loud as to block out the dispatcher’s voice.

One phone was crawling with ants. Sometimes, drivers cannot tell CHP dispatchers their location because signs are missing or because they speak foreign languages.

So the Los Angeles County Criminal Justice Coordination Committee has concluded that Los Angeles County’s 20-year-old emergency freeway call box system, once a pioneer of its kind, should be upgraded and perhaps replaced.

Study Recommended

The committee, an advisory panel to the Board of Supervisors that is made up of law enforcement personnel, voted Wednesday to recommend that the supervisors conduct a feasibility study that could lead to the upgrading of the current system or to the installation of a new one. Such a system would be financed through an annual fee of up to $1 per registered vehicle.

“The biggest advantage of a new system is that it would automatically signal to dispatchers the location of the phone where the call is being placed, the same way the 911 emergency system does,” said Cheryl Ward Smith, senior assistant city attorney, who prepared the committee’s report.

The problems were tallied during an informal survey on portions of the Santa Ana, Pomona and San Gabriel freeways, according to Richard Noonan, assistant chief of CHP’s Southern Division.

“The problem varies from freeway to freeway,” Noonan said. “But there is a whole range of defects that make phones unusable at any given time.”

The system is comprised of 3,062 telephones, roughly one every quarter of a mile. Noonan said CHP dispatchers receive about 1,500 calls daily and more than 3,000 in bad weather.

Law Clears Way

Both San Diego and Orange counties are in the process of installing such systems under a program called SAFE, Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies. SAFE was set up by a 1985 state law that allows counties to impose a $1 annual fee per vehicle to upgrade an existing system or establish a new one.

When Los Angeles began setting up its system 20 years ago, it was the first county in California to do so, Smith said. The current system is funded with state gas tax revenues.

If a new system is set up under the SAFE program, Noonan added, the CHP may be able to add additional dispatchers, cutting the time non-emergency callers must wait until a dispatcher can take their call. On busy days, he said, callers sometimes have to wait up to 15 minutes.