Death Toll Climbs to Six

Santa Ana has recorded its sixth pedestrian fatality of the year, equaling the total deaths for all of 1998 and raising new concerns about traffic safety in the city.

The latest accident occurred Tuesday night as a 41-year-old Orange man was crossing West 1st Street in an area that has seen numerous pedestrian injuries and deaths over the last three years. Santa Ana already has the highest pedestrian death rate in Southern California, and a three-mile stretch of West 1st Street has recorded six fatal accidents since October 1995.

“It’s an area where pedestrians feel that they have to go great distances to be able to cross the streets safely,” said Diane Winn, part of a team of UC Irvine researchers who are studying pedestrian safety in Santa Ana.

City officials expressed frustration, saying the deaths are senseless and avoidable. But they said the city’s 4-month-old program to reduce accidents is working and that they don’t see a need to introduce new initiatives.

“We just have to keep up the effort, and I have to believe that we will improve the situation,” said City Manager David N. Ream. “If there were a logical physical improvement we could make, I’m sure we’d make it.”

The city’s new crackdown includes more jaywalking patrols and a public-education campaign targeting Latinos. Since the crackdown began, police have issued more than 1,500 jaywalking citations and more than 250 tickets to motorists who failed to yield to pedestrians.

Police are compiling a report on total accidents so far this year to determine whether the program has been effective. Other city officials said the problem has more to do with human behavior than with traffic engineering.

“We cannot control pedestrian behavior, no matter what we do,” said city traffic engineer T.C. Sutaria. “It goes back to awareness of the rules of the road: how to cross.”

But some residents and traffic safety experts have faulted the city, complaining that officials are reluctant to approve traffic signals, medians and other measures at busy intersections.

In Tuesday’s accident, police said, the pedestrian was chiefly to blame. The victim, Alfredo De La Sancha Aguirre, was intoxicated when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking outside a crosswalk near Jackson Street.

Police later arrested the owner of the car, Jose Esteban Orneleas, a 29-year-old Santa Ana resident.

Aguirre, a Mexican immigrant who had been in the country since 1989, lived with two of his six children and two granddaughters in a two-bedroom Orange apartment. His 18-year-old daughter, Enelida De La Sancha Martinez, said her father sometimes worked seven days a week at his garment-industry job and sent money regularly to Mexico, where his wife and other children live.

She said he missed his family in Mexico and that may have contributed to his excessive drinking.

“He was a good man,” she said, “but he drank too much.”

Sgt. Raul Luna noted that each of the six pedestrians killed this year had been crossing mid-block and was technically jaywalking. Among victims were a man with a learning disability and a 76-year-old grandmother on her way to church.

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Santa Ana’s Death Row

In a city with the highest pedestrian fatality rate in Southern California, a 3-mile stretch of 1st Street stands out as Santa Ana’s deadliest street. Six pedestrians have been hit and killed between Bristol Street and the city’s western border since October 1995.

Tuesday’s fatality

Sources: City of Santa Ana, Times research