Country Road, City Load : Congestion, Speed Make for Wild Ride in Santiago Canyon

Maybe it’s the wild open spaces that stir the drivers’ blood.

On consecutive days this week, a desolate, dipping, 12-mile clip of Santiago Canyon Road played host to a pair of traffic incidents ordinarily reserved for city streets.

First, a man from Trabuco Hills repeatedly cut off another driver, lost control of his car, crashed and died. Then a Lake Forest woman, whose car sported a “PEACE 95” vanity license plate, allegedly chased a motorist, threatening him with an aluminum softball bat. She was arrested.

The folks who inhabit this lonely stretch of chaparral in eastern Orange County aren’t surprised by the week’s craziness. They’ve been watching it for years.

“People treat it like a freeway,” said Mary Ellen Park, standing in front of her nursery along Santiago Canyon Road. “All you can do is pull over and hope you don’t get caught up in someone else’s action.”

The traffic is heavier than it was 22 years ago, when Park and her husband settled here. Then, it was mostly the bikers who provided the excitement. Civilization has crept eastward. Park and her husband now say there is an average of one serious accident a month.

Even as Park spoke, the cars zipped past, many zooming by at speeds far above the 55 m.p.h. speed limit.

The zaniness of Santiago Canyon Road, neighbors and police say, is explained by its location. The road connects Orange and El Modena in the central part of the county with Lake Forest and Rancho Santa Margarita in the south. With almost nothing in between, Santiago Canyon Road is a scenic shortcut: Drivers run from one part of the county to another without jumping on the dreaded Interstate 5.

Add to that the road’s shape and slope--it’s just two lanes most of the way, with sharp, dipping turns--and it’s enough to make the police work overtime.

“People are in a hurry,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Speros Doumas. “They lose their patience. They drive like maniacs.”

Doumas has worked the canyon road for more than a decade. A typical accident occurs, he says, when a driver gets stuck behind a slow-moving truck and tries to pass.

Police say that on Thursday, 26-year-old Lisa Lind tried to do just that. When she couldn’t get around Michael F. Morris’ truck, witnesses say she whipped out a softball bat. Lind pulled alongside the right of Morris’ truck--on the shoulder of the road--and started swinging, according to authorities. But the wind was strong, and the only dents Lind succeeded in making were on her own car.

When the bat didn’t work, Lind flung a canister of air freshener at the truck, police say. Afterward, Lind told Doumas the whole story, the officer said.

“She said she was running late for an appointment,” Doumas said. “She wanted to show the guy that she couldn’t be pushed around.”

Morris said he was baffled by the incident.

“I see a lot of fingers, a lot of people cutting other drivers off,” he said, “but never anything like this.”

Lind was arrested on suspicion of reckless driving, aggravated assault and possession of marijuana. She was being held at Orange County Jail on Friday evening.

The Lind arrest happened Thursday, just down the road from a county fire station. Not a mile away the day before, a similar incident ended in death. When Jennifer Hasselbrink of Trabuco Hills tried to overtake David Keeton, Keeton repeatedly blocked her. Each time Hasselbrink moved to pass, Keeton moved to block. The two cars banged each other, Keeton spun out of control and head-on into an oncoming fire truck. CHP officers found Keeton’s body and his Ford Thunderbird 30 feet down an embankment.

Tony Pierce, an employee with the Orange County Fire Authority, was seriously injured in the crash. Doctors had to reattach his nose.

Word of the confrontations spread through the canyon Friday, but it didn’t seem to have much impact on drivers. Doumas, the CHP officer, parked his car in the late afternoon and waited. In less than a minute, he pulled over a driver for making an illegal pass.

“I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway,” Luz Maria Derosas Gonzalez said, fondling her newly received traffic citation. “I was in a hurry.”

Doumas said a lot of the problems along Santiago Canyon Road would cease if drivers would stop treating it like a country road.

“This is California,” he said. “Traffic is always going to be a problem.”