CHP Switches to Radar for Select Roads : Enforcement: Santiago Canyon Road and part of El Toro Road targeted. Warnings this week. Citations in April.

Brian Cunningham expected a smooth run home along Santiago Canyon Road after spending Thursday morning surfing in San Clemente. Instead, he was pulled over for going 65 in a 55-m.p.h. zone.

Fred Tuttle, a salesman from Mission Viejo, was running late for a business meeting in Brea when the California Highway Patrol stopped him for exceeding the speed limit by 13 m.p.h.

And John West said he was speeding home to attend to a sick daughter when the flashing red lights appeared in his rearview mirror.

The three were all targets Thursday of CHP Officer Andy Sechrist’s deadly accurate moving Doppler radar system. It was only the third day that, in a major shift in enforcement procedure, the CHP used radar on hazardous Santiago Canyon Road. This week they were issuing warnings; but starting April 3, they say, erring drivers will begin receiving citations.

“Our whole idea is not to go out and write a bunch of speeding tickets but to get people to reduce their speed and thereby reduce the number and severity of collisions,” said Sgt. Jay Gentile, the CHP’s area radar coordinator. “If people think it’s being heavily enforced, they will obey the speed limit.”

The new enforcement policy, he said, is part of a federally funded, yearlong project to determine whether the use of radar can improve safety on highways. Participating in the project are 38 radar units in 26 areas of the state, including a short stretch of El Toro Road between Mission Viejo and one mile north of Cooks Corner.

The nine-mile stretch of Santiago Canyon Road from Cooks Corner to the Orange city limits was included in the project, Gentile said, because of a dramatic increase in the number of traffic fatalities recently due to speeding. Last year, he said, 13 people died in speed-related crashes on the road, compared to five people the year before. And a recent survey by the CHP, he said, indicated that 79% of the drivers on that route exceed the 55 m.p.h. speed limit.

Gentile attributes the increase in deaths to a number of factors. Because the road is the only major alternative to Interstate 5, he said, its use has mushroomed with the area’s population. And with no stoplights for miles and the route lined on both sides with green hills and grazing cows, he said, the temptation to speed is sometimes irresistible.

All of which makes traditional enforcement procedures both dangerous and ineffective, Gentile said. Without radar, he said, CHP officers had to lie in wait by the side of the road, then screech out to pace suspected violators for several miles before pulling them over. This takes a long time and can be dangerous.

With radar, Gentile said, officers can cruise at the speed limit and by pressing a button on a small hand-held box resembling a television remote control, activate the device to indicate the speed of a nearby vehicle on a small red screen above the dashboard.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Sechrist, holding the remote-control box in his right hand while steering with his left during Thursday’s tour.

Not all of his targets agreed.

“I’m so embarrassed,” said West, an anthropology professor at nearby Rancho Santiago College. “People do drive a little reckless and fast up here; I’m always talking about it.”

Tuttle, 28, said he was “shocked” when he first noticed the CHP car bearing down on his Dodge Dynasty. “When I saw his light,” Tuttle said, “I looked at my speedometer and I was only going 60.”

The salesman conceded, however, that he may have been going faster a few minutes earlier before noticing the patrol car. And learning that the outcome would be a mere warning rather than a citation, he lightened up considerably, even praising Sechrist’s performance.

“I appreciate the warning,” Tuttle said, “and I will definitely heed it. I don’t like getting tickets. I need to pay more attention.”

Santiago Canyon Slowdown

An unusual increase in fatalities on Santiago Canyon Road has prompted the California Highway Patrol to begin monitoring drivers’ speed with radar.

Fiscal Speed-Related Fatal Year Accidents Accidents Fatalities 1990-91 20 7 13 1989-90 20 3 5 1988-89 22 3 4

Source: California Highway Patrol