Pedestrian Killed Crossing Near Inland Checkpoint

Authorities were investigating the death Sunday of a man who was hit by a car on the southbound Interstate 5 just south of the San Onofre border checkpoint, officials said.

The unidentified man was struck at 6:53 p.m. while crossing the freeway about a mile south of the checkpoint, which is about three miles south of San Clemente, California Highway Patrol spokesman Ted Prola said.

The dead man was identified only as Latino, said Chuck Bolton, an investigator for the San Diego County medical examiner’s office.

“He had no papers in his possession, no identification at all,” said Bolton, who had no further details Sunday evening.

The fatality was the first reported pedestrian death on the once treacherous section of freeway in nearly three years. Immigrants often dashed across the freeway south of the checkpoint to avoid the U.S. Border Patrol. Officials credit the 7-mile-long, 8-foot-high fence in the median that runs between Las Pulgas Road to the checkpoint with preventing the injuries and fatalities to pedestrians that were once common in the area.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a fatal there,” Prola said. “We’ve done a lot to stop that from happening.”

Starting in 1993, the last year a pedestrian was killed on Interstate 5, the CHP and Caltrans also erected signs showing a silhouette of a man, woman and child dashing across a yellow background.

At that same time, an aggressive public relations campaign was launched by the CHP’s Mexican liaison office to spread the word south of the border of the dangers on the freeways of the Southland.

Prior to that time, the pedestrian toll was grim.

In 1990, the worst year ever, a total of 15 people were killed on an 18-mile stretch of roadway near the checkpoint.

The CHP reported four fatalities in 1993 before the fence was finished in August; seven in 1992; two in 1991; 14 in 1989; six in 1988; and five in 1987.