Pedestrian Deaths Reveal O.C.’s Car Culture Clash

The working-class Latino neighborhoods in the heart of Santa Ana are among the few places in California where the car isn’t king.

In these and other densely populated barrios across the state, residents walk everywhere--to the store, to church, to school, to work. Some go weeks or months between trips in a car, as they did in rural Latin American villages where many residents grew up.

But being an island of pedestrian culture in a car-dominated society is taking a tragic toll. Santa Ana has the highest pedestrian fatality rate in Southern California, and other predominately Latino communities are facing similar problems.

Both statewide and in Orange County, Latinos account for a disproportionate share of pedestrians injured and killed in accidents, according to a review of state hospitalization data. Latinos make up 28% of Orange County’s population but account for 40% of all injury accidents and 43% of all deaths, according to the data.

Latino children are especially vulnerable. In Orange County, for example, 11 of the 15 child pedestrians killed in 1997--the last year that numbers are available--were Latinos.

The high accident rates are gaining the attention of both local police and lawmakers in Sacramento, who last month allocated $20 million to improve pedestrian safety around schools.

Yet adding new crosswalks and traffic signals can only be part of the solution, according to experts who say the high accident rates have as much to do with clashing cultures as the need for street improvements.

One major problem: Many accidents occur in century-old neighborhoods with narrow streets connected like a grid and lined with dense apartment complexes. Some areas simply weren’t designed for the number of people who now live in them, especially when streets and sidewalks double as makeshift playgrounds for children.

“Latinos are at greater risk,” said James Rojas, a transportation planner and member of the Los Angeles County and City Pedestrian Safety Task Forces. “They use the streets a lot differently than most ethnic groups in the city do.”

Mind-sets are also different, experts say. Many immigrants in Santa Ana come from small Mexican towns and aren’t used to the crush of traffic in Southern California. As a result, pedestrians at times misjudge speeds or driver behavior while crossing streets, officials said.

Take Santa Ana resident Maria Mendoza, an immigrant from the rural Mexican state of Nayarit whose son was struck by a car and seriously injured while crossing Broadway at 15th Street last year.

In the village where she grew up, Mendoza said most motorists drove slowly on unpaved roads, a far cry from the fast, unfriendly boulevards her family must now cross.

The collision’s impact was so violent it tore the boy, then 5, from her grip and tossed him 15 feet in the air. He recovered from a serious hip injury, but the psychological wounds remain, she said.

“My son is terrified of cars,” she said. “Whenever we try and cross a street, he freezes. Santa Ana is much more dangerous than where I came from. In Las Varas, you can walk anywhere without worry.”

Such accounts are common in many immigrant Latino communities. Though no nationwide study exists that examines the link between pedestrian injuries and Latinos, the issue is commanding closer attention in places where experts believe they suffer disproportionately high pedestrian injury rates.

The University of North Carolina is studying traffic safety in the state’s growing Latino communities. The city of Los Angeles formed a pedestrian safety task force six months ago, and the county followed suit a few months later.

In Orange County, a UC Irvine study found that Latino children in central county, including Santa Ana, are twice as likely as white children to suffer pedestrian injuries.

Indeed, the findings speak volumes about the economic status of residents in the central core, which is the poorest in Orange County. According to Santa Ana officials, residents are less likely to own cars than elsewhere, leaving them little choice but to walk.

The dangers aren’t lost on residents, many of whom brave the trek across major boulevards only in groups, fearing that cars won’t stop for just one person.

In Mendoza’s neighborhood north of downtown, the intersection where her son was struck is so notorious that some residents speak about it in fearful tones.

Last month, a Bolivian immigrant, Angelica Saravia, 46, was struck by a van in the crosswalk and killed.

A few weeks later, a car plowed into a mother and her two children. The 15-year-old boy and the 10-year-old girl fully recovered, but the mother, 40-year-old Eva Vasquez, remains bedridden with broken ankles.

The accident held horrific significance for a neighbor, 22-year-old Maria Torres Belmonte, who happened upon the ugly scene. She is Saravia’s daughter.

Belmonte forced herself to observe the accident scene. “Ay Dios. Senti mucha tristeza. I felt great sorrow,” recalled Belmonte, wiping away tears. “I cry every time I think about it.”

Some neighbors now refuse to cross at the intersection.

But dozens of pedestrians make their way across the street daily--embarking on trips that other Orange County residents routinely make by car. They carry school backpacks, bag lunches, shopping bags, laundry, even children.

In fact, much of local commerce takes place on the well-worn sidewalks, from the pushcart vendors selling their mangoes to the produce trucks that sell fresh vegetables curbside.

“When the city gets going, it’s amazing the number of people that are moving around,” said Msgr. Jaime Soto, who spent years serving in one of the city’s largest parishes. “To that extent, Santa Ana is more like Sahuayo, Michoacan, than it is like Irvine, California.”

The pedestrian life is rich and brings smiles to many who like the spontaneity and social interaction it fosters. But some residents said they always feel danger lurking as cars speed by.

The situation has government agencies struggling to find ways to improve safety. Partly to blame are drivers who are unused to navigating areas with heavy pedestrian traffic and fail to yield at red lights and crosswalks.

But officials also said some pedestrians themselves are reckless, darting into streets, refusing to use crosswalks and walking against red lights.

Alarmed by the high number of pedestrian accidents, Santa Ana earlier this year began a massive public education campaign--much of it in Spanish. Police escort home young children who jaywalk or play recklessly near busy intersections and urge parents to pass on traffic safety tips.

In addition, Orange County’s Mexican Consul Miguel Angel Isidro has met with police officials to discuss creating a pedestrian education program for Mexican immigrants.

More creative ideas are also being tried. The federal government has produced a short, Spanish-language soap opera that includes pedestrian safety tips along with the steamy plot lines. In Washington, D.C., a Spanish-language public education show has devoted several segments to the issue.

Southern California officials said more needs to be done here as well.

“We have to rethink our approach,” said Rojas, the MTA planner. “We should be more focused on the needs of the people in Latino neighborhoods.”