ANAHEIM : Traffic Safety Activist Injured in Accident

Residents of Colonia de Independencia, an unincorporated area near Anaheim, said Sunday they were sad and angry.

A leading champion of the community, Rudy Aguilera, was seriously injured Friday when he was struck by a car as he walked across the same dangerous intersection he had been urging city officials to improve.

“One of the people who has worked the hardest for the safety of our neighborhood has been hit by a car, and we think it’s sad and ironic,” said Johnny Martinez, a friend who was at the scene minutes after the accident.

Aguilera, who lives in the Colonia de Independencia neighborhood, has been working for years to get either city or county government to make a crosswalk safer at Garza and Katella avenues.

Recently, he has been collecting signatures for a petition about the hazardous intersection, which he was planning to give Anaheim officials.

“I guess there is double irony in this accident because Rudy was carrying those petitions with him Friday afternoon when he was struck by a car at that intersection,” Martinez said.

The accident occurred about 6:15 p.m. Friday as Aguilera walked across Garza Avenue in an unincorporated area of the county.

A spokeswoman at UCI Medical Center said Aguilera remained in critical condition Sunday at the hospital.

Witnesses said the driver of the vehicle that struck Aguilera stopped after the accident and was in contact with police. But California Highway Patrol officials, who handle traffic cases in the county’s unincorporated areas, said Sunday they had no information about the accident that they could release.

Aguilera, 38, was a longtime activist in Colonia de Independencia, where he worked at the community center. The Colonia is a predominantly Latino, residential area.

Martinez, 28, said Aguilera was walking in or near the marked crosswalk when he was struck by a car. “His body landed about 15 to 20 feet from the crosswalk,” Martinez said. “He was already in a coma when I got there.”

Martinez and another friend of Aguilera’s, Sandra Moran, said the Garza-Katella intersection has been a killing ground for more than 20 years. “A lot of people have been killed at that intersection, and the first was back in 1968,” Martinez said.

“People in the neighborhood have been trying to get someone to make that intersection safer for many years,” said Moran, who also lives in the Colonia neighborhood.

Moran said she was worried that Anaheim city plans call for even more traffic on Katella. “That’s going to make the intersection even more dangerous,” she said.

Martinez said Colonia residents feel frustrated.

“We’re a neighborhood that governments ignore because we’re not part of a city and because we’re predominantly Hispanic,” he said.

Added Moran: “How many people does it take (to be killed or injured) before they finally decide to put some flashing lights there?”