Correa Wants to Double Fines in Pedestrian Areas

An Orange County assemblyman said Thursday he will introduce legislation inspired by Santa Ana’s pedestrian accident problems that would double fines on motorists who speed, run red lights or violate other traffic laws around schools and other areas frequented by pedestrians.

The proposal by Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim) is aimed at reducing the number of children and others who are struck by cars while also providing government agencies with additional funds to install new traffic signals and take other pedestrian safety measures.

Orange County children are victims in a disproportionate share of pedestrian accidents, according to a statewide study released earlier this year, with an average of two a week being struck by cars.

Santa Ana has the highest pedestrian fatality rate in Southern California; about half of all accidents in the city involved children walking within a few blocks of a school.

Correa said his plan will aid police in Santa Ana and across California by adding teeth to the vehicle code. Motorists who now pay $271 for running a red light, for example, would pay $542 if the infraction occurred near a school, park or other area designated by the city as a pedestrian safety zone. The fine for failing to yield at a crosswalk would jump from $103 to $206 in those zones.

“We have a problem with traffic safety, and we have a serious problem in Santa Ana,” Correa said.

The proposal, to be introduced in January, comes a month after the Assembly Transportation Committee held a special hearing on pedestrian safety in which Santa Ana officials said they didn’t have the money to install flashing crosswalk lights, traffic signals or other street improvements.

It’s unclear how much money doubling fines would generate, although some residents said they gladly welcomed additional money and penalties.

“I would think that any effort to penalize people who aren’t more cautious around pedestrians might help to raise the awareness level of people in the community,” said Michele Morrissey, a community activist who lives in Santa Ana’s Floral Park area.

Cities Could Define Pedestrian Zones

Correa’s proposal would give cities a new weapon in their efforts to reduce accidents: the power to designate certain intersections or full neighborhoods with a history of accidents as pedestrian safety zones.

A Times analysis of accidents in Santa Ana found several clusters with especially high numbers of pedestrian injuries and deaths.

A one-mile stretch of West 1st Street, for example, accounted for nearly a fourth of all pedestrian deaths in Santa Ana during the past three years, the study found. Five pedestrians lost their lives and six were injured on that stretch, while a portion of Bristol Street saw three deaths and 14 injuries.

Santa Ana Councilman Ted Moreno said Thursday that the plan is well-intentioned but questioned whether doubling already sizable traffic fines would create an undue financial burden for residents who receive tickets.

Correa and four other members of the Assembly Transportation Committee also called Thursday for a comprehensive review of state laws that deal with pedestrian safety.

Their calls came in the wake of a Times story that found that California’s vehicle code lacks a provision carried by at least 34 other states requiring motorists to be especially careful if they observe children, the disabled or other impaired individuals.

With this language absent, police around the state are more likely to blame pedestrians for accidents than motorists. Santa Ana, for example, has blamed hundreds of accidents over the last decade on children as young as 2 years old.

“It’s appalling to blame a child for getting hit by a car,” said Assemblywoman Sally Havice (D-Cerritos). “I have a 5-year-old grandchild. What does he know about the rules and regulations about crossing the street? How can they be expected to weigh that judgment when a car is coming down the street. . . . A car is a deadly weapon.”

Havice and the other Assembly members said they also wanted to look into possibly raising the fines for motorists who are faulted in pedestrian accidents.

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 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 does seem a bit out of whack that the people guilty of actually hitting someone in a pedestrian zone are not fined as much as those [who] run red lights,” said Assemblywoman Susan A. Davis (D-San Diego).

Correa agreed. “As a society, what message are we sending? That [hitting a pedestrian] is less of a transgression?” he said. “That’s the message I’m getting. That is something we need to change.”