Road Safety a Growing Concern

Accidents such as Monday’s head-on collision on Laguna Canyon Road have prompted local and state officials to re-examine what can be done to increase safety on the county’s roads.

Monday’s accident left two people in critical condition, and others on Laguna Canyon Road--which has a gruesome history of accidents involving motorists, cyclists and pedestrians--have claimed four lives since November.

Last June on Santiago Canyon Road, Mark Alan Wilson, a 17-year-old graduating high school senior from Mission Viejo, was killed when he lost control of his Volkswagen Beetle. And just last month in Huntington Beach, Teresa Martinez, 37, and her mother were killed when their truck crossed a Pacific Coast Highway divider and hit a parked road grader.

Gary Slater, the California Department of Transportation’s chief of traffic operations for South County, said that Orange County is beginning to experience “a lot of accidents” because “the volume of traffic is so high.”

Slater said it is possible to adapt the larger freeways, such as the Golden State Freeway and the San Diego Freeway, to today’s driving patterns and improve the margin of safety by increasing the radius of interchange ramps and widening the lanes.

But projects like the current Santa Ana Freeway interchange expansion are not viable for more restricted thoroughfares, such as Ortega Highway and Santiago Canyon Road, Slater said.

Enhanced safety measures for roads such as those, which are often narrower and have sharper curves, might include requiring motorists to use their headlights even during the daytime, Slater said. Other actions could include increasing the number of signs alerting drivers to road conditions, increasing or improving the striping and adding raised reflective markers where the road curves.

When asked if adding overhead night lights could be an option, Slater said that Caltrans only uses such lights at interchanges.

California Highway Patrol Officer Bill Wedderburn said the best thing motorists can do to prevent accidents is simply reduce their speed.

Enforcing the speed limit with radar and always using headlights are two measures the CHP employs to increase safety. “People on those types of roads should pay more attention to what they’re doing,” Wedderburn said.