Roads Risky for Kids on Foot

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

Reflecting a statewide trend, children account for 33% of Orange County pedestrian accidents, even though they make up less than a fourth of the population, researchers from the Surface Transportation Policy Project found.

The study, one of several to focus attention on pedestrian safety, comes several months after a UC Irvine report found that Santa Ana has the highest pedestrian death rate in Southern California.

The study found that young Latinos and African Americans, who are more dependent on walking or riding bicycles than any other segment of society, are among those most vulnerable to being hit by motor vehicles and represent a disproportionate share of the pedestrian victims in the state.

Pulling together data from the California Highway Patrol, the state health department, the U.S. Census Bureau and other agencies, the study found that Latinos 21 years old and younger accounted for 47.9% of the state’s pedestrian fatalities and injuries in 1996 but represented only a 38.5% share of the population. Roughly twice as many African Americans 21 and younger died or were injured than their share of the population would indicate.

The study found that being hit by a car while walking is the second leading cause of death for California children ages 5 to 12.

The report also cited a study by the Santa Ana Unified School District showing that nearly half the pedestrian accidents reported in that city during one five-month period involved children walking near schools.

Statewide, nearly 5,000 children on foot are injured each year, a rate of nearly 14 a day.

Earlier this year, Santa Ana began a major enforcement effort that includes more jaywalking patrols and a public-education campaign targeting the city’s Latino population. Since the crackdown, police have issued more than 1,500 jaywalking citations and more than 250 tickets to motorists who failed to yield to pedestrians.

Police officers now patrol some campuses on the lookout for motorists who ignore school crossing guards’ orders to yield. Officers have also begun escorting children home if they see them jaywalking, then discussing pedestrian safety with their parents.

The state study cited densely populated city areas, motorists who turn wide boulevards into speedways during their morning and evening commutes, and the heavy foot traffic in some neighborhoods as contributing to the toll.

Statewide, pedestrian deaths account for more than 20% of traffic-related fatalities each year, the study said.

Orange County had the fifth-highest number of fatalities and fourth-highest number of pedestrian injuries in 1998, according to the report: 36 deaths and 909 injuries. Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties were also toward the top of the list.

The surface transportation project, based in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., uses its research to advocate more environmentally friendly land use and transportation policies. The nonprofit organization represents a coalition of environmental groups--such as the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth--plus unions, transportation planners and others.

Among those who contributed to the study was Luis Arteaga, policy director of the San Francisco-based Latino Issues Forum.

Reared in a Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles, Arteaga said that all his life he had heard stories about the dangers to pedestrians, particularly children, in densely populated neighborhoods. “We wanted to compile data that would get behind the anecdotes,” he said. “Unfortunately we found they were true.”

The study argues that funding for pedestrian safety programs is not even on the radar screen compared to the money pouring into highway and bridge construction. It said the California Department of Transportation “spends less than 1% of its federal traffic safety funds on pedestrians, even though more than 20% of all traffic fatalities statewide are pedestrians.”

Jim Drago, a Caltrans spokesman, said the study did not take into account the pedestrian components of major transportation projects, such as sidewalks and shoulders built along roadways. “Under our bridge replacement program, we have shoulders and sidewalks especially for pedestrians, but that is not specifically listed as a pedestrian safety project,” he said.