Seven Oaks Traffic Death Renews Push for Stop Signs

Martha Vail and her late husband were among the first residents of Seven Oaks, a senior citizens community forming the center of Rancho Bernardo. They moved to their home on Horado Road in 1965.

Since her husband died a year or so ago, 90-year-old Martha had become a familiar figure around Seven Oaks as she walked her aging collie, Bruce, several times a day.

“They were so sweet and so slow,” recalled a neighbor. “We used to wonder who was taking whom for a walk.”

In this senior community of 1,700 households, everyone knew Martha Vail by sight, and many knew her well enough to nod and pass the time of day.

So talk around the Seven Oaks community center Friday was mostly about Martha and her tragic death. The woman and her dog were crossing Lomica Drive about 7:15 a.m. Thursday when they were struck and killed by a westbound auto.

San Diego Police Department reports on Vail’s accident show that the 24-year-old woman driver whose car struck Martha Vail and her dog was not speeding. Stop signs at three intersections, recommended by the Seven Oaks’ citizens’ traffic committee, would not have prevented the accident because the elderly woman and her dog were crossing at mid-block and not at one of the intersections.

But area residents say the circumstances are not at issue and maintain that the accident underscores their concerns.

Bob McMillin, who heads the Seven Oaks’ citizens’ traffic committee, didn’t know Martha Vail, but he knows all about Lomica Drive. He and others in the neighborhood have been trying to do something about speeding cars that use the two-lane street as a shortcut to avoid traffic lights on Rancho Bernardo’s arterial streets.

“We have met with city traffic engineers to ask them to do something about it, and we got nowhere,” McMillin said. “We wanted four-way stop signs placed at several intersections along Lomica, but they said that we did not meet the city standards for installation of stop signs.”

There have been a few fender-benders along the street, which is designed to serve the neighborhood only, McMillin said, “but this death really brings the issue home to us.

“This is a senior citizen community, officially recognized by the state as such, and at least one occupant of each home must be 55 years of age or over.

“We have a lot of golf-cart traffic and joggers and such. We need some way to slow these drivers down to the posted speed limit--25 miles an hour.”

Hearing Scheduled

Long before Martha Vail’s death, McMillin had petitioned City Councilman Ron Roberts, chairman of the council’s Transportation and Land Use Committee, to schedule a hearing on the neighborhood’s concerns about Lomica Drive. A hearing was set for Monday.

“We have a bus to take people down. I imagine, after what’s happened, that it will be full up. That’s 46 people,” McMillin said.

Seven Oaks residents have asked for stricter traffic enforcement on Lomica, for speed bumps and for stop signs. They have even asked that the street to be turned into two cul-de-sacs to prevent outsiders from cutting through the community, from Pomerado Road to Bernardo Center Drive to avoid four or five traffic signals on the major Rancho Bernardo arterials.

City traffic engineers have vetoed the residents’ proposals, citing city standards such as accident rates and traffic volumes. Lomica Drive does not rate speed bumps or stop signs or cul-de-sacs according to city criteria.