Crackdown Brings No Slowdown at I-5 Checkpoint

Cars are still breaking the speed limit on Interstate 5 near the San Onofre immigration checkpoint, despite extra patrol cars and signs warning motorists about pedestrians dashing through traffic, the California Highway Patrol said Monday.

Every night since March, between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m., the CHP has deployed three extra cars along a 10-mile stretch near the checkpoint. The goal is to enforce the 55-m.p.h. speed limit, but the 4,400 tickets officers have issued have yet to slow drivers down by more than a couple of miles per hour, Capt. Ron Phulps said.

Five people have been killed trying to dodge cars at the site this year, including a man and woman crossing with about 10 other people, officials said. Hundreds of others avoided death by mere fractions of a second, the agency said. Undocumented aliens cross the freeway south of the checkpoint in an attempt to avoid U.S. Border Patrol agents.

The extra CHP patrols and other safety measures were prompted by a dramatic increase in such fatalities after 1987, officials say. In 1990, 24 people were hit near the San Onofre checkpoint--15 of them died--more than twice as many as in 1987. The victims ranged in age from 8 to 80.

California Department of Transportation surveys show that drivers have slowed down somewhat in the past year. Last month, for example, 67% drove at 65 m.p.h. or slower, compared to only 45% in August, 1990.

Before the CHP began cracking down on speeders, virtually no one drove the speed limit, officials said. Since the three extra cars were deployed, for a total of four, more motorists have slowed to the speed limit--6% in October, the most so far, Caltrans officials said.

“It won’t do any good to post a speed lower than 55,” said Robert Triplett, Caltrans traffic engineer. “People ignore it like they’re ignoring the 55 now.”

Too many drivers along the beachfront highway bordering Camp Pendleton still daydream on the treacherous stretch, Phulps said. They are often commuters, used to the routine and the signs along the road.

But there’s nothing like the sight of a patrol car in the rear-view mirror to make a driver slow down.

“As Joe Citizen goes through, if he doesn’t see them (patrol cars), he won’t slow down,” Phulps said. “Maybe we just need more cars out there.”

Phulps said he has followed traffic in an unmarked car and noticed people driving “about a mile” per hour slower at the new flashing warning signs near the checkpoint, then speeding back up a mile down the road.

“We may not be slowing (drivers) down, but people are being more alert,” Phulps said. “It’s some measure of success.”

Roberto Martinez, director of the U.S.-Mexico Project with the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego, has said that greater enforcement of the speed limit and more CHP units on the freeway are needed to reduce the number of deaths and injuries.

When the one-year special patrol program ends in February, Phulps said, he hopes a new 8-foot-tall, 5-mile-long median fence will be finished, forcing pedestrians who want to evade the U.S. Border Patrol to do it along the east side of the freeway--where they won’t have to cross eight lanes of traffic.