Speed Bumps Might Have Saved Woman, Neighbors Say

Leaders of a Newport Beach homeowner’s association, outraged at the death of a Balboa Peninsula woman who was run down by a speeding motorist, said Saturday that the tragedy might have been avoided if the alley where she died had speed bumps.

As Debbie Ann Killelea, 37, walked with her two sons behind their home on East Ocean Boulevard on Thursday evening, she was hit and thrown about 50 feet by a driver suspected of being drunk. The boys escaped injury, but Killelea died in surgery. It happened less than two weeks before a city traffic committee was to take up the issue of speed bumps in her neighborhood at the tip of Balboa Peninsula.

Long before the widely publicized accident, the city’s Traffic Affairs Committee had scheduled a Sept. 13 hearing on the use of speed bumps to slow traffic in densely developed sectors of the beach town, including the area where Killelea, her husband, Brian, and three children lived.

“There’s a sad irony that Debbie died just as the city finally was going to address this whole mess,” said Dayna Pettit, president of the 500-member Peninsula Point Homeowner’s Assn. “I hope now something positive can come from this. It’s time to act.”

Traffic congestion and speeding drivers have long been the primary enemies of those who live in the attractive and expensive area southeast of Balboa Pier. Bordered by Newport Harbor on the east and the Pacific on the west, and less than a block from the famed bodysurfing beach the Wedge, the neighborhood is highly desirable, with its well-kept homes. There also is a sense of community, homeowners say, which comes from the area’s isolated location.

But the area’s remoteness also is its curse, and residents such as William Wren said a traffic fatality was bound to happen.

“It’s a tragic situation, but it’s something that we anticipated would happen sooner or later,” said Wren, who has lived on the area’s main artery, Balboa Boulevard, for nearly two decades and has pushed in the past for more traffic safety measures. “This is a residential area, not a commercial strip. But people don’t see that. They come to Balboa Pier and the Fun Zone and they say, ‘Hey, let’s see what’s at the end of the peninsula.’ A lot of them don’t have business down here. Yet, they come, and, unfortunately, some bring trouble.”

It was an outsider who was arrested in Killelea’s death. Danny David Ornelas, 19, of Huntington Park was booked in Newport Beach Jail on suspicion of murder and felony drunk driving. Ornelas, who was still in custody Saturday night on $250,000 bail, is scheduled for arraignment Tuesday morning in Harbor Municipal Court.

The curious on Saturday continued to walk or slowly drive the alley where Killelea was killed. Bricks were still missing from the wall where she was pinned by the driver’s sedan before she was thrown. The car eventually rolled, slamming into the rear of a garage several houses away.

Killelea, who was well known for her volunteer work in the community, was walking with her sons about 5:15 p.m. when the sedan came speeding toward the trio. She pushed her two boys, ages 10 and 6, to safety before trying to flag down the motorist to slow down. Instead, police said, he swerved toward her.

“This is a holiday weekend, a special time of year when peninsula residents celebrate the beginning of the end of the summer crush,” said Pettit, a 16-year resident of area. “Instead, a kind of morbidness has settled over everybody.”

As his three children played in the front yard of the family’s two-story home, Brian Killelea spent time Saturday walking alone on the beach. At the nearby Peninsula Point Racquet Club, an annual Labor Day tennis tournament was canceled. Brian and Debbie, avid tennis players and members of the club, were entered. Wren, who played occasionally with Brian, said: “Nobody felt much like going ahead with it.”

Call for Quick Action

Pettit and others spent Saturday calling for quick action by the city to prevent another tragedy. In a letter sent Friday to the seven-member City Council, Pettit, on behalf of the homeowners’ association, lobbied for more stop signs in the area and speed bumps in alleys behind homes.

Like many sectors of the city, garages in the peninsula empty into alleys. But Pettit contends that an increasing number of motorists use the alleys as shortcuts to avoid congestion on surface streets. Often that happens at night, she said, and more often than not, the drivers are young.

“I was young once, and know what it’s like,” Pettit said. “They are drawn to the beach, it’s a magnet. But we’ve got to do something to stop them. The alleys are narrow, and when people are pulling out of their garages or walking, they can’t always see a speeding motorist.”

Installing speed bumps, she said, would discourage the use of the alleys. In addition, more stop signs in the neighborhood would make it more difficult for motorists to violate the 25 m.p.h. speed limit in the area.

Councilwoman Ruthelyn Plummer, whose district includes west Newport Beach, which has similar problems, agreed.

‘How Many Must Die?’

“I have advocated using speed bumps for years,” she said, but the city engineer’s office always has a long list of excuses why we can’t. It’s time we realize this is the 1980s, not the 1950s, and this city has a traffic and speeding problem. How many more people must die?”

Using speed bumps, however, is not a sure-fire solution, City Atty. Robert Burnham said. Because alleys legally are considered public streets, installing speed bumps could create a liability problem.

“Anytime you put something like that on a street,” he said, “there is a potential for liability. . . . Depending on how steep and sharp the bump, it could leave the city open for a lawsuit, should someone get hurt as a result.”

Rather than speed bumps, Burnham said, the city might consider “speed humps,” a more gradual type of asphalt mound that has worked successfully on some streets in Laguna Beach. The humps act to slow motorists but unlike some bumps do not require a driver to come to a complete or near stop. Motorists can safely and comfortably clear a hump going 15 to 20 m.p.h.

“What we need,” Burnham said, “is a psychological impediment rather than a physical impediment--something that makes the driver think.”

But Councilman Donald A. Strauss remains unconvinced of the value of speed bumps.

“We’ve never been convinced that speed bumps make it any safer, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary,” Strauss said. “And I’m afraid speed bumps wouldn’t have made any difference this time.”