Maneuver Carefully at These 10 Intersections : Traffic: County’s most dangerous crossings are in Garden Grove, Orange, Tustin, Buena Park, Huntington Beach and Lake Forest. Drivers ignoring red lights, construction contribute to accidents.

Every day, Joe Badillo drives his black-and-silver pickup through the intersection at West Chapman Avenue and the Orange Freeway, and every day he risks becoming a statistic.

The hectic crossing in Orange was the scene of 62 accidents last year, with 18 resulting in injuries, making it one of the most dangerous intersections in Orange County, according to California Highway Patrol statistics.

Other cities with intersections rated among the 10 most dangerous include Garden Grove, Tustin, Buena Park, Huntington Beach and Lake Forest.

Orange traffic engineer Bernie Dennis blamed the high number of accidents, averaging one every six days, on freeway construction that has resulted in detours and delays for the 430,000 cars a day that move through the area.

“It’s the Orange Crush,” Dennis said of tie-ups on the Orange, Santa Ana and Garden Grove freeways. “There was a huge, huge increase in traffic and use (over the last 1 1/2 years) of that intersection by unfamiliar motorists.”

That comes as no surprise to Badillo.

“You never really know what off-ramp’s going be closed, and people are not aware of where they’re supposed to go,” the Garden Grove resident said as he waited to get gas at a station near the intersection.

“It’s a little confusing, and if you’re in a hurry, it can make you impatient and careless,” he said.

Traffic officials hope some of the problems will be cured by the opening of the Bristol Street/La Veta Avenue bridge Thursday. But they’re not holding their breath.

“It’s been a mess,” Dennis said.

Herbert Vargas, Buena Park’s traffic engineer, said the heavy traffic on Beach Boulevard--which claims one of most dangerous intersections, at La Palma Avenue--could be attributed to tourists.

“People, coming from different areas of the country and even the world, are not aware of our traffic system,” Vargas said. He told of a Swedish tourist who ran a red light and told police he was surprised he got into an accident.

“He said in Sweden, they are used to cheating on the red because there is a longer all-red cycle.”

The total number of accidents and the rate of mishaps (the chances a car will get into a crash if it enters a particular intersection) are used to rate safety.

Using those statistics, the intersection with the worst record is Garden Grove’s Brookhurst Street and Westminster Avenue, the scene of 54 accidents last year, 27 with injuries.

Those numbers translate into a rate of 1.97 accidents per million vehicles entering the intersection, nearly four times the statewide expected rate for that type of intersection, according to state Department of Transportation figures.

Viet Nguyen, a cashier for a gas station near the intersection, has had a ringside seat for the past three years.

“We see accidents a lot,” the 38-year-old woman said as she rang up purchases Friday. “There’ll be a bang, bang, bang, and three cars will have rear-ended each other. People are always running red lights.”

In addition to having the street crossing with the highest accident rate, Garden Grove also has the distinction of having the most intersections on the list, many of them on streets that parallel the Garden Grove Freeway.

In the top 10 were crossings at Harbor Boulevard and Trask Avenue, with 39 accidents, 17 with injuries, and Brookhurst at Garden Grove Boulevard, with 15 injuries in 38 accidents. The city had four other intersections in the top 20, including Garden Grove and Harbor boulevards, with 28 accidents, 11 injuries; Garden Grove Boulevard and Haster Street and Garden Grove Boulevard and Magnolia Street, both with 28 accidents, 12 injuries; and Banner Drive and Harbor Boulevard, with 27 accidents, 13 injuries.

In an effort to make the intersections safer, some cities, including Garden Grove, have stepped up traffic enforcement.

Garden Grove Police Lt. Kevin Raney, who oversees the traffic division, said tickets in areas around the most-dangerous intersections have doubled over the past two years.

“Enforcement in Garden Grove has increased . . . tremendously in the last two years, with a focus on accident-causing violations at heavy accident intersections,” Raney said.

Ticketing people who ignore seat belt laws or who run red lights has resulted in a citywide drop in accidents, including a 22% decline in the number of injury accidents, Raney said.

Raney said Garden Grove keeps better track of its accidents than other cities, a diligence that he said won it a place higher on the list than it deserved.

Garden Grove traffic engineer Paul Grimm blamed the high number of accidents on an increasing trend on the part of drivers to ignore red lights, a problem mentioned by several state and local traffic experts.

“A lot of people aren’t obeying the rules of the road,” Grimm said. “I’m convinced that that’s leading to a lot of accidents.”

Grimm said all the intersections with the worst records have signals with left-turn arrows and that lanes have been added at some places to make turning easier. But in the end, he said, human error cannot be erased.

“There’s only so much we can do,” he said.

Debra Farmer, 34, said she takes extra precautions when she drives her 1974 Volkswagen Beetle.

“I keep my eyes wide open,” she said as she pumped gas into the maroon car. “A lot of people try to cut you off. I’ve had to slam on my brakes because of people not caring about anybody else on the road.”

Jim Swatzel, senior civil engineer with traffic operations for the county, said Farmer is wise to plan ahead when driving. He said one of the main problems in areas such as Lake Forest, particularly where El Toro Road crosses Interstate 5, is a lack of foresight on the part of motorists.

“These are very busy intersections with a lot of different traffic movement taking place,” Swatzel said. “You really have to think ahead of where you want to turn and where you’re going.”

Dangerous Driving

Garden Grove was home to three of the 10 worst crash intersections in Orange County in 1992. No fatalities occurred at any of these trouble spots, but injury and non-injury crashes were all in double digits. The 10 worst traffic intersections and freeway interchanges in Orange County:

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Property Intersection Injury Damage Total West Chapman Avenue/Orange Freeway 18 44 62 (Orange) Brookhurst Street/Westminster Avenue 27 27 54 (Garden Grove) Santa Ana Freeway/Costa Mesa 9 45 54 Freeway (Tustin) Harbor Boulvard/Trask Avenue 17 22 39 (Garden Grove) Garden Grove Boulevard/Brookhurst Street 15 23 38 (Garden Grove) Beach Boulevard/La Palma Avenue 15 19 34 (Buena Park) Golden West Street/Warner Avenue 14 20 34 Huntington Beach El Toro Road/Rockfield Boulevard 10 24 34 (Lake Forest) Adams Avenue/Magnolia Street 13 19 32 (Huntington Beach) Chapman Avenue/Costa Mesa Freeway 5 26 31 (Orange)

Source: California Highway Patrol; Researched by T. Christian Miller / Los Angeles Times