Pedestrians Often Blamed When Struck

Edgar Vasquez was 6 when he bounded through a crosswalk in Santa Ana on his way to school and a Chevrolet Monte Carlo slammed into him.

Edgar suffered a broken leg that still hurts him three years later. But to the surprise of his family, police eventually cleared the driver and blamed the accident on the boy.

His case is far from isolated. Santa Ana as well as many other communities blame pedestrians--notably children--far more often than drivers for accidents, guided by a California statute that holds motorists less responsible for such crashes than laws in most states.

Absent from California’s vehicle code is a provision carried by at least 34 other states requiring motorists to be especially careful--even to the point of sounding their horns--if they observe children, the disabled or other impaired individuals.

Lacking this language, Santa Ana police have blamed hundreds of accidents over the last decade on children as young as 2 years old--even when they died. They have also assigned fault to pedestrians in dozens of hit-and-run accidents, including at least eight in which the pedestrian died, according to a Times analysis of state traffic data.

Lawmakers in Sacramento and locally are focusing more attention on reducing the number of pedestrian accidents--especially those involving children. This is prompting new scrutiny of the vehicle code and other elements of California’s traffic laws.

Consider:

* While the vehicle code doesn’t require special care around children, it does demand that drivers “exercise proper control . . . and reduce speed to avoid frightening and to safeguard livestock” that may be on the road.

* And even when police do cite motorists in pedestrian accidents, the punishments are far from harsh. The most common type of pedestrian accident blamed on drivers--when a car strikes someone in a crosswalk--carries a maximum fine of $103 regardless of how severe the injuries are.

That’s far less than the $271 fines for running a red light or driving alone in a carpool lane or the $270 fine for littering. When drivers hit pedestrians while speeding or ignoring a stop sign, they pay only the fine for those infractions and no additional penalties.

“It’s really frustrating,” said Glendale Police Lt. Don Meredith, a member of the Los Angeles County pedestrian safety task force who is pushing for state legislation that would toughen penalties when pedestrians are severely injured. “If someone is negligent and leaves a pedestrian in a real critical injury state, it’s not even a slap on the wrist, just a minor fine.”

Police officials defend the way they assign blame, saying the circumstances of many accidents along with the state law gives them little choice but to fault pedestrians. But they stressed that changing the statute to require more care by motorists--as most other states do--would result in major changes.

“I’d like to see something like that in the California Vehicle Code,” says Cpl. Eric Mattke, the Santa Ana traffic officer who heads up the department’s effort to reduce pedestrian accidents. Adopting tougher rules “would make a big difference in the way we look at accidents.”

Santa Ana--which has the highest pedestrian fatality rate in Southern California--is just one of several local communities including Anaheim, Huntington Beach and Buena Park that blame pedestrians for accidents far more than drivers.

The practice makes it more difficult for injured pedestrians to get medical bills paid, and some traffic experts believe it leaves policymakers with the incorrect impression that nothing can be done to improve safety.

The Times analysis found that police in both Santa Ana and Anaheim assign blame to pedestrians in 67% of the serious pedestrian accidents between 1994 and 1998. Statewide, police blamed pedestrians for 59% of such crashes.

In deciding culpability for the most common pedestrian accident--those which involve people hit outside of crosswalks--police must weigh the pedestrian’s obligation to yield versus the motorist’s duty to exercise due care.

It is often a subjective call, and one that Santa Ana police decide in favor of the motorist 97% of the time. In more than half of 333 such cases, the accidents involved children under 9 years old who were almost invariably hit in residential areas.

Some traffic safety experts express shock at the numbers--especially at how many children are faulted for accidents.

“When they blame a crash on the pedestrian and it’s a child, it’s most likely that it happened in a residential neighborhood, and the motorist was driving way too fast for the conditions,” said Dan Burden, a pedestrian safety consultant and Florida’s former bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

“In a lot of these cases, there should be a lot more investigation into whether the motorist was driving in a reasonable and prudent manner,” he said.

Edgar Vasquez, now 9, was blamed for a 1996 accident on Flower Street even though he was in a crosswalk at the time, according to the accident report. The driver told police Edgar entered the street without looking, something the boy denies.

Police interviewed the driver and two witnesses, but not the boy, who was rushed away from the scene in an ambulance. “I never talked to the police, I was in the hospital,” said Edgar, a skinny, brown-eyed youngster who still experiences lingering pain from the broken leg he suffered.

Edgar’s mother, 39-year-old Elsa, said she was unable to recover $1,000 in hospital bills.

Indeed, legal experts said insurance companies are less likely to provide compensation when pedestrians are faulted for the accidents. By contrast, drivers who are blamed by police might not face stiff fines but could face costly civil lawsuits from the pedestrians they hurt.

Legal experts also note that some attorneys are reluctant to accept cases if pedestrians have been found at fault by police.

“Cases like those sometimes can be expensive propositions, because the thorough review and investigation needed comes out of our own pockets,” said Alfredo Amezcua, a prominent Santa Ana personal injury attorney. “If we find that it’s going to be a tougher road to take, then a lot of times we refer them out to other firms.”

Officers Receive Thorough Training

Authorities defend their approach to accidents. They say officers receive extensive training and handle each case thoroughly. The factors considered include what clothing the pedestrian was wearing, the time of day and where the accident occurred.

Officers try to get the pedestrian’s account, but officials concede it is often difficult. The injuries leave some people unable to speak coherently. Other pedestrians are rushed to the hospital for emergency care, they said.

“We always try to [question pedestrians], but there are times we can’t,” Mattke said.

Mattke and others said an officer’s judgment calls are heavily influenced by how the vehicle code is worded. If the code shifted the burden of responsibility more to motorists, especially in the presence of children, drivers’ actions would receive more scrutiny, they said.

The nation’s “model code,” which has been adopted by a majority of states, reads that “every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian . . . and shall give an audible signal when necessary and shall exercise proper precaution upon observing any child or any obviously capacitated or intoxicated person.”

It’s unclear why such language is not in California’s code. Some police officers also wonder why the state penal code doesn’t carry tougher punishment for motorists who severely injure pedestrians.

Drivers found at fault for hitting pedestrians usually are fined less than $300, no matter how severe the injuries. If a pedestrian dies, negligent drivers are charged with vehicular manslaughter and usually serve no jail time unless they were drunk or grossly negligent, according to Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jack Sullens.

Earlier this year, a 61-year-old man speeding on Broadway in Santa Ana struck a crossing guard, breaking both of her legs. The 51-year-old guard has been unable to work for months and walks with a cane, according to colleagues.

The driver was found to be at fault and issued a speeding ticket with a maximum fine of $170, according to state accident data.

In another case, Valeria Campos, 2, was thrown several feet after a car struck her in front of her home on Baker Street. Valeria suffered scrapes and bruises in the 1996 crash, and the fright of her young life.

“Thank God he wasn’t driving faster,” said Eloina Campos, the girl’s mother. “He would have killed her.”

The driver’s punishment: a $103 traffic fine.

Some officials believe raising fines won’t make a significant impact and that the best way to reduce accidents is through better traffic engineering and public education.

“These are called accidents because they’re not intentional,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Raul Luna said. “Stricter penalty may affect some drivers who have a tendency not to pay attention, but I think in cases where accidents are unavoidable, it wouldn’t have much of an effect.”

But other police as well as some traffic experts disagree.

“There needs to be a significant penalty to have an educational effect to start reducing these types of accidents,” said the Glendale Police Department’s Meredith. “If you get tagged and pay a steep fine, you’re going to think twice about not yielding in the future.”

Experts point out that in some European countries, penalties for hitting a pedestrian are much more severe than in the United States, and injury rates are lower.

“Motorists are literally getting away with murder in the U.S., and the result encourages more and more dangerous driving,” said John Pucher, a Rutgers University urban planning professor who has studied pedestrian safety in northern Europe.

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Who’s to Blame?

Statewide, pedestrians are blamed in 59 percent of serious injury accidents. In other major Orange County cities, pedestrians are faulted at higher rates. The cities include:

Santa Ana -- 67 percent

Anaheim -- 67 percent

Garden Grove -- 60 percent

Costa Mesa -- 64 percent

Huntington Beach -- 68 percent

Westminster 65 percent

The Price You’ll Pay

The most common type of pedestrian accident is when motorists fail to yield at a crosswalk. The fine is fixed at $103, regardless of how severe the injuries to the pedestrian are. That penalty is far less than other traffic violations, such as:

Running a red light -- $271

Littering -- $270

Driving without proof of valid insurance -- $1,350

Driving without a license -- $211

Speeding over 100 mph -- $324

Source: Times analysis of state accident data; state bail schedule