Freeway Project Creates a Hazard

Your March 14 headline “O.C. Crash Puts Focus on Safety of Roadwork” strikes a bull’s-eye on the subject of safety in public works.

For the California Highway Patrol to imply the fault may be with the driver of the rig because he may have been speeding is directing the attention unfairly to the driver and not at the site conditions.

Caltrans’ insisting that drivers should use caution in a construction area should not be support [for the proposal] that it was the truck driver who erred.

There are existing engineering standards in Caltrans procedures that if employed on the construction site would have prevented the accident or at least reduced the probability of its occurring.

Caltrans is a highly respected organization for the application of engineering principles in highway design and construction.

However, the performance of traffic control on this project is abysmal, exhibited by the lack of adequate signage, poorly designed temporary transitions from one freeway to another, and poor scheduling and timing.

The transition from the westbound Riverside Freeway to the northbound Santa Ana Freeway has a negligible acceleration lane to permit a car, much less a double-trailer rig, to achieve adequate speed to enter the Santa Ana Freeway safely.

Because of the existing highway geometry and the apparent speed differential of the truck and the automobile that collided with the rig, visibility and reaction time for either driver could have been compromised leading to the accident.

Should the drivers of both vehicles have known to slow down? Sure, if the proper signage existed and was properly placed to warn and slow traffic through the construction zones. Many of the signs are placed too close to the construction zones for the posted speed differential and are often too small to provide drivers adequate time to notice or react accordingly.

Caltrans’ efforts to keep traffic flowing are commendable but should not be at the expense of safety. Simple standards must be enforced at the start of construction to achieve maximum safety.

PIERRE HANDL

Anaheim