Collisions Decline on Stretch of 126

Vehicle collisions on notoriously dangerous California 126 east of Fillmore have declined at least 50% since the beginning of a high-profile driver-safety campaign, statistics released Monday show.

Injury collisions dropped 50% and non-injury collisions 63% on the highway from Fillmore to the Los Angeles County line between Jan. 15 and March 12, compared with the same period last year, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Dave Cockrill.

“We’ve definitely seen a change in the highway out there and we think it’s directly related to the increased enforcement out there, the heightened public awareness,” he said.

Two construction zones are set up for workers to widen and ultimately improve safety conditions on 13 miles of road locals call “Blood Alley” because of the frequent accidents.

Only one fatality has been recorded in the construction zones since the safety campaign began. Comparable figures from last year were unavailable, but five of the 11 deaths that occurred in December and January happened in the 10 miles of highway under construction.

Since then, California 126 has become the most heavily policed highway in the county, Cockrill said. As many as nine officers at a time are assigned to the route. CHP officers made 1,300 “enforcement contacts,” a term that includes everything from giving drivers verbal warnings to tickets, since mid-January, Cockrill said. He estimates police made no more than 300 such contacts during the same period last year.