The Most Dangerous Mile

The most dangerous mile on the most dangerous freeway in the most dangerous county for truck accidents in California begins here.

Hulking big rigs from the Long Beach Freeway, the state’s busiest truck route, begin the hazardous task of merging into the fast lane of the northbound Santa Ana Freeway using a connector road that officials say has been obsolete since the 1960s.

While some 200 to 300 trucks an hour lumber in on the left side, the Santa Ana’s two right lanes are already crowded with big rigs and other commercial trucks--almost a thousand an hour, Caltrans says.

The confluence of these two rivers of trucks puts the squeeze on the smaller vehicles in between, many of them completely hidden from the truckers’ views in the “no zone,” the substantial blind spot truckers have on both sides, rear and front, of a big rig.

The result, according to a Times analysis of computerized data from the California Highway Patrol, is the greatest concentration of truck accidents on any single mile of freeway in California, the overwhelming majority involving passenger cars sideswiped by trucks.

Along this stretch of the Santa Ana Freeway, I-5 between the Long Beach Freeway connector and Indiana Street, the CHP was summoned to handle 302 truck accidents over the five year period from 1994 to 1998. The number has been on the rise of late, from 40 in 1994 to 72 in 1998.

1,200 Trucks, 12,000 Cars

During what Caltrans says is a typical hour along this most dangerous mile, 1,200 trucks jockey for lane position with 12,000 cars and small pickups darting and weaving through their midst.

“That’s a ready-made formula for wrecks,” said CHP Officer Dan Luttio, 48, who has cruised that stretch of road for 27 years. He has the distinction of handling more accidents there over the last five years than any of his colleagues.

“Unfortunately, there’s a spot on the right side of a truck where the truck drivers simply cannot see,” Luttio said. “And there’ll be a car in his blind spot, and the car gets banged up.”

Interstate 5 through Los Angeles County has by far the highest number of truck accidents in the state--twice as many as second-ranked Interstate 880 in Alameda County. Although the Long Beach Freeway has the greatest concentration of trucks per mile, I-5 has the highest volume of truck traffic.

The 88-mile segment of Interstate 5 in Los Angeles County--from Kern County to the Orange County line--recorded more truck crash fatalities (45) and injuries (1,040) than any other freeway segment in any other California county over the five year period. By comparison, Interstate 880 recorded 11 fatalities and 964 injuries.

After the Santa Ana Freeway mile, the second most accident-plagued mile--with 293 truck accidents over the same five-year period--was the stretch of the Long Beach Freeway (Interstate 710) approaching the Santa Ana exit, according to The Times’ analysis.

This comes as no surprise to Luis Aceves, 44, a truck driver for Alto Systems in Whittier, who has traveled Los Angeles freeways for more than 20 years.

“When you get on the [Long Beach Freeway] at Washington Boulevard, as thousands of truckers do, you’re generally doing only 30 to 35 miles an hour. If you need to get off on [Interstate] 5, you’ve got to cross four lanes of traffic in the next half-mile. And some of [the cars] in the lanes you’re crossing are going twice as fast as you are.”

If the onrushing cars don’t tangle with the lane-changing trucks, they frequently bang into each other while trying to avoid the trucks.

Outdated Design of Freeway Blamed

Although a Times analysis found that truckers were at fault in about half of all California large-truck crashes, the accidents at the Long Beach-Santa Ana connector are blamed more than nine times out of 10 on the truck drivers, who are most often cited for unsafe lane changes. Fortunately, “most of them are low-speed crashes. In the 25 years I’ve worked that stretch of [the Santa Ana Freeway], I don’t think I’ve ever handled a fatal there,” said the CHP’s Luttio. “Often the injuries aren’t even visible.”

Although the truckers almost invariably get the blame, Luttio and truck drivers say the highway’s design is really the problem.

Doug Failing, the chief of highway design for Caltrans in Los Angeles, said that the Santa Ana and Long Beach freeways were among the first in the nation to have freeway-to-freeway connectors. The connector was state of the art in the mid-1950s when it was built.

The idea at the time was that freeway traffic should merge into the fast lane of the other freeway, allowing vehicles to continue traveling at a high rate of speed.

This approach worked when freeways were less congested. But as freeways became busier, connectors that allowed vehicles to enter via the fast lane became illogical and potentially dangerous. Most onramps and freeway connectors built since the 1950s feed into the slow lane on the right.

The last connector to dump merging traffic in the fast lane was the San Diego-Ventura freeway interchange in Sherman Oaks, designed in the late 1950s.

Failing said that a complete reconfiguration of the 710-5 connector was planned as part of the hoped-for extension of the Interstate 5 widening underway through Orange County, where left-hand connectors are being removed. How likely is the plan to go through? “I wouldn’t call it pie in the sky, but I wouldn’t call it a real plan either,” Failing said.

Aceves, the Whittier truck driver, says Caltrans should “simply close that ramp to trucks”--a move that could eliminate the underlying cause of many truck accidents in the area.

But he readily acknowledges that his view would not be popular with many of his fellow truckers because the alternate route--proceeding onward to the westbound Pomona Freeway--would make it almost impossible to reach some of the truckers’ destinations in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights. That’s because of the proliferation of “No Trucks” signs in many areas that trucks would have to pass through.

“Short of redoing the entire interchange, or closing it to trucks entirely, I don’t know that there’s much that can be done” to reduce the truck accident rate, Luttio said. “The best advice I can give anybody going through that stretch of road is, don’t drive on the right side of a big-rig truck.”

Times researcher Paul Singleton contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Heavy truck traffic to and from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and two giant rail yards straddling Washington Boulevard, make the Long Beach Freeway the state’s busiest truck route. Trucks entering the Santa Ana Freeway from the Long Beach Freeway help cause the greatest concentration of truck accidents along any highway mile in the state.

* 302 truck accidents occurred along the first mile of the Santa Ana Freeway between the Long Beach connector and Indiana Street from 1994 to 1998.

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* Long Beach Freeway at Glenn Anderson (I-105) Freeway has the highest truck count in the state: 69,890 per day.

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* Busy port feeds traffic to freeway

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* Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe train yards.

1. Many trucks enter the Long Beach Freeway from rail yards at Washington Blvd.

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2. Those that want to head north on the Santa Ana Freeway must cross three lanes in a half-mile.

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3. Trucks jockey with other vehicles to reach exit ramp.

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4. After entering Santa Ana Freeway, slower-moving trucks enter fast lane and begin lane changes that can cause accidents.

Long Beach / Santa Ana Crunch

From 1994 through 1998, truckers were blamed for 91% of the 302 truck accidents that occured in the first mile after trucks from the Long Beach Freeway entered the northbound Santa Ana Freeway. By comparison, truckers were blamed for 51% of total accidents involving trucks.

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Top causes for truck-related accidents on this mile, 1994-98:

Unsafe lane change: 182

Excessive speed: 39

Tailgating: 30

Improper turn: 15

Unsafe highway entry: 5

Passing on right: 2

DUI: 1

Source: California Highway Patrol

Graphics reporting by RAY HERNDON / Los Angeles Times