A Dash of Danger

Geronimo Tarango and his friends had only a 20-minute lunch break from their roofing job on Thursday and so were interested in making the most of their time.

That meant darting across Reseda Boulevard to Burger King by the quickest means possible: barreling right through the middle of traffic, forgoing a walk to the Vanowen Street corner and a wait for the crossing light.

“I have to hurry up,” Tarango, 43, explained sheepishly about his death-defying run across four lanes of fast-moving vehicles. “There’s no time to wait for the light.”

Tarango’s attitude might partially explain the findings of a Washington-based group, which reported Thursday that Los Angeles, Orange and three surrounding counties make up the nation’s eighth-most-dangerous metropolitan area for pedestrians.

The study called on government officials to devote more money to protecting walkers and bicyclists.

“At this rate pedestrians are becoming an endangered species,” said Gloria Ohland, who supervised the gathering of Southern California data for the nonprofit Surface Transportation Policy Project. “People are literally being driven off the street.”

The study ranked three urban areas in Florida as the most precarious for pedestrians: Orlando, followed by the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater region and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.

Local traffic experts added that the San Fernando Valley’s streetscape only aggravates the problems of pedestrian safety, with wide boulevards and well-maintained streets that seem to encourage speeding drivers.

But to traffic police, pedestrians themselves play a big part in making their crossings unsafe--by jaywalking and going against the traffic lights and worse.

Take Tarango and his friends. Pardron Cruz warned the group about the foolishness of their route as they headed out.

“I told them, ‘Don’t cross in the middle, it’s too dangerous,’ ” said the 38-year-old Cruz.

But that was just before he joined his friends in the illegal dash anyway.

“I saved time for lunch,” he offered meekly, laughing at his own explanation.

Sgt. John Amott, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division, said the division does not have a list of the most dangerous pedestrian spots in the Valley--primarily because there are so many bad spots, with little or no pattern.

But in general, Amott said, side streets off main thoroughfares are often deadly, since the wide expanses with little or no traffic often tempt drivers to speed.

Busy intersections, which often slow drivers down with signals and heavy traffic, are not free from problems.

A March accident in which a semitrailer truck hit a mother and her two daughters--killing the woman’s baby--happened at the busy crossing of Topanga Canyon and Roscoe boulevards. Witnesses said the driver was making a legal turn when the woman suddenly ran into the intersection, after the “don’t walk” signal began flashing.

Along with jaywalking, walking against the signal is among the top pedestrian infractions, Amott said.

James E. Moore, an associate professor of urban planning and civil engineering at USC, said blame for pedestrian injuries belongs both to the walkers and their municipalities.

“It has historically been very difficult to protect people from being foolish,” Moore said. “So building safe systems is very challenging.”

Some pedestrians may be emboldened by the protection they have from the California law that requires drivers to halt for anyone on foot, even those who are in the roadway illegally, Moore said. Many states do not have such laws. “The fact that it’s not uniform might lead some folks to be less conservative than they should be,” he said.

But even Los Angeles, which Moore says has one of the best traffic signal systems in the country, could benefit from more signals, better enforcement and stronger education programs.

None of which might change the habits of either 41-year-old Ed Dunn or 32-year-old Jeanette Costello.

Dunn walked about a block out of his way Thursday to cross at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura boulevards on his way to the drugstore.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Dunn said. “I’m not going to jaywalk.”

Costello, meanwhile, rushed into the middle of Ventura Boulevard in Encino to chase down a UPS driver to hand off a package.

Even after she caught him, however, she unapologetically crossed right back through the middle of traffic to return to her office--even as she watched a police officer drive right in front of her.

“I got away with it--barely,” she laughingly told a co-worker back at her office. “I needed to get back.”

According to Thursday’s report, there were 1,382 fatalities and major injuries to pedestrians--including bicyclists--in the area encompassing Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties in 1996. That number far surpassed the figures for every other region in the country.

But seven other communities were deemed more risky, based on the report’s “pedestrian danger index,” which factored in the number of pedestrian accidents per 100,000 people and U.S. census data on the percentage of people who walk or bicycle to work.

Times staff writers Amanda Elk and Daniel Yi also contributed to this story.