One Mother’s Mission : Son’s Death Prompts Fight for Traffic Signal

The squealing tires, the dull thumping crash, the snapping bones. Every day, Cathy Peterson stands at the crosswalk where her son was killed and imagines how it happened.

Travis, her 13-year-old pride and joy, pedals furiously down the sidewalk on Erringer Road, determined to stake out the perfect spot for the next day’s fishing derby at the park.

Then, just half a block from the park lagoon, he ventures into the street at a crosswalk made of a few white lines painted on the road. No stop sign or signal alerts four lanes of rushing traffic to a boy on his bike.

Some of the cars stop, but one does not. Travis is knocked into the air, lands on his head, unconscious, and dies two days later.

Standing just feet from where her son was hit a month ago, Peterson, a single mother, tells the story. Her voice cracks and her eyes tear, but then her tone becomes determined, angry. She does not want this to happen again. Not to her other child--an 11-year-old boy--or anyone else.

So Peterson is focusing her grief and anger on a very specific goal: getting a traffic signal installed at the crosswalk.

“I don’t think anyone should have to go through what I’m going through right now,” she said. “I’m doing this so that no one else has to feel this way.”

Peterson has met with the mayor, and her request is scheduled to be heard by the City Council on June 19. In the meantime, Peterson does not rest.

Half a dozen local shops are circulating petitions in support of the signal; more than 1,000 signatures have been collected so far. And Peterson plants herself for hours at a time a few feet from where her son was killed, on the Erringer Road bridge over the Arroyo Simi.

With flowers, signs and photographs of her son in his hockey uniform taped to the bridge, Peterson has become a neighborhood fixture.

Early one recent morning, motorists tooted horns and waved. Bicyclists stopped and chatted, signing her petition. A resident out walking her dog stooped to add a fresh bouquet of garden roses to the fragrant collection lining the bridge railing. Of the nearly three dozen people who stopped by, all agreed that the crossing is unsafe.

“I walk here very often, and I swear sometimes I don’t know if I’ll make it across,” said Isaac Newton, a longtime Simi Valley resident. “I have children and grandchildren who walk here. It is not safe at all.”

Indeed, mid-block crosswalks are considered unsafe by many traffic engineers. Motorists do not expect to be stopped where there is no cross street, and pedestrians get a false sense of security from the white lines of the crosswalk.

“We really do not like to have too many of them around,” said Bill Golubics, Simi Valley traffic engineer. “But in a special circumstance like this, it was considered the best way to go.”

The special circumstance is a bike path that runs along the Arroyo Simi channel. The channel flows perpendicular to Erringer, crossing underneath the roadway. But the channel is not wide enough to accommodate bicyclists under the bridge. So when the bike trail was constructed in the mid-1980s, a crosswalk was painted across Erringer.

Now the crosswalk is used not only by bicyclists along the arroyo, but also by anyone just trying to get across the street.

Mayor Greg Stratton said it may be worthwhile to consider either installing some kind of signal or altering the underpass to make room for bicyclists. “We need to look at what can be done to make the area as safe as possible for as many people as possible,” he said. “What exactly that will be, I don’t know. But I think we’ve made it clear that we are concerned about bike safety throughout the city.”

Travis’ death came less than a year after several youths were involved a string of bicycle and pedestrian accidents near Simi Valley schools.

Three students were hit while trying to cross streets and a fourth, who was riding his bike on the wrong side of the road, was injured when he collided with a police cruiser.

Those accidents spurred the city to launch an intensive bike safety education effort. DARE officers and others were dispatched to classrooms throughout the city. They cautioned children against careless riding and reminded them to wear helmets to comply with a new state law that requires the headgear.

It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of such a program, although the Simi Valley Police Department uses statistics on bicycle and pedestrian accidents as one gauge.

From 1990 to 1992, the number of reported accidents in Simi Valley involving bicyclists or pedestrians dropped from 117 to 95 a year. In 1993, the number rose slightly, to 105, and then fell sharply in 1994 to 72. For the first five months of 1995, the rate appears to be creeping up again--police have recorded 39 accidents so far.

Since officers began enforcing the helmet law in January, they have issued 339 warnings and 143 citations for $25, Lt. John Ainsworth said.

“We’ve emphasized the enforcement of it,” he said. “I think it is having a good effect.”

Councilwoman Sandi Webb, who made bike safety a central theme of her reelection campaign last fall, said she is pleased with the efforts of the Police Department and others to teach children safe riding habits.

“We need to get to these kids at an early age and keep at them all through school” Webb said. “That way, it will be like second nature, following the rules of the road.”

But sometimes children find their own ways of following such rules. Travis was wearing a helmet--a hockey helmet that fell off when he was struck. And instead of dismounting and walking his bike, as posted safety signs suggested, Travis rode into the street.

For Cathy Peterson, the only solution is to make the crossing safer.

“I don’t want to fight the city or anyone else,” she said. “I just want us to learn something from what happened, and to try and make it better.”

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FYI

The Simi Valley City Council is tentatively scheduled to consider Cathy Peterson’s request for a traffic signal on Erringer Road at the Arroyo Simi on June 19. For information, call City Hall at 583-6701.