Thousand Oaks Corner Tops ’98 CHP List

As one of the safest cities in the United States, Thousand Oaks has very few mean streets. But it does have one mean intersection.

There was an accident about every two weeks at Hillcrest Drive and Moorpark Road in 1998, giving Thousand Oaks the dubious distinction of having the most dangerous intersection of any city in the county that year.

But Oxnard, owner of 10 of the county’s top 15 most dangerous intersections, claimed the next five spots.

The intersection of Ventura Road and West 5th Street in Oxnard was ranked No. 2 with 26 accidents involving rear-enders, running red lights or hitting fixed objects, among other things.

The most dangerous intersections had from 20 to 29 accidents in a year.

Those numbers are not exorbitant, said Dave Cockrill, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, which collects the statistics from the county’s 10 cities.

“It’s only about two collisions a month. I was a little surprised Oxnard came up so often, but I don’t think it’s more unsafe than the rest of the county,” he said.

Cockrill speculated that Oxnard’s streets may be carrying a higher volume of cars than they were originally intended to hold.

But Oxnard officials said the numbers may have more to do with Oxnard’s growth than anything else.

“The bottom line is you have to look at the makeup of the surrounding areas and see if there has been development or if traffic has been diverted onto those roads from other roads,” said Ken Klopman, traffic coordinator for the city.

Joseph Genovese, Oxnard’s traffic engineer, said he was surprised that so many accidents occurred at Ventura Road and West 5th Street.

“It is a very large intersection, about 47,000 cars a day, and it has two through lanes in each direction, double left-turn pockets and left-turn arrows in all directions,” he said. “You can’t make a safer situation with every movement protected by its own signal.”

To address the problem, Oxnard recently relocated signals to place them closer to traffic.

Genovese said increasing signal visibility at the intersection was the only thing the city could think of to fix the problem, but officials will need to wait for 1999 statistics before they can judge the success.

The intersection tied for No. 3, Channel Islands Boulevard and Saviers Road, underwent renovation in August 1998 to relieve congestion.

“That intersection has a lot of pedestrian activity, and drivers that would want to turn right would wait for the pedestrians to cross and that would back up traffic,” he said.

Tied for No. 4 was C Street and Channel Islands with 24 accidents. In August 1998, the city added two additional street lights.

“One of the things that happens is people assume they can turn left at the end of the yellow and the car approaching doesn’t stop. Lighting can help because people don’t take as many chances,” he said.

Camarillo had one intersection in the Top 15--Daily Drive and Las Posas Road--with 22 incidents.

So what about that No. 1 intersection in Thousand Oaks?

“There really isn’t anything unusual about that intersection,” said John Helliwell, city traffic engineer. “We’ve taken care of collision factors with engineering improvements; now it is up to the drivers who drive.”

Helliwell said the intersection at Hillcrest Drive and Moorpark Road is of average size with two through lanes and turn lanes in each direction.

“I wouldn’t say the traffic is particularly high. Sometimes you can estimate why people are having accidents and sometimes you can’t because it’s just human behavior.

“There is nothing wrong with that intersection.”