Calling for Caution

Winding, wide-open Soledad Canyon Road has claimed its fifth victim in a month, a 16-year-old girl who suffered head injuries in a crash on the Canyon Country road becoming infamous for fatalities.

Lisa Jones and 18-year-old Brandon Davis were driving west on Soledad on Tuesday night when they swerved to avoid a car pulling out from a side street. Davis suffered slight injuries. Lisa died Thursday afternoon.

The accident followed a crash last weekend less than two miles away on sinuous, narrow Sand Canyon Road, in which nine young people crammed into a Ford Taurus after a night of partying flipped their car and it smashed into an oak at about 70 mph. All nine were hospitalized, and one of them, 26-year-old Michael Robinson, remains in critical condition.

And less than two miles away from that crash, three Canyon High School students were killed and two others were slightly injured in February when their Acura, speeding down Soledad Canyon Road, crashed through a median, flipped over and landed on top of an oncoming Mustang, killing the driver of that car.

“There are so many similarities,” said Deputy Mike Shapiro of the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station, who was called to all three accident scenes. “I haven’t seen any of the cars upright. All three of them are upside down, backwards, and there are all these kids.”

In at least two of the recent accidents, authorities say unsafe, high-speed driving by young drivers played a role in the deaths.

Mayor Jo Anne Darcy said a task force of deputies and volunteers is working at school campuses to urge young drivers to stop speeding.

“We’re meeting in the assemblies. We’re meeting in the school lots. We’re talking to everybody we can get to listen to tell them to stop the speeding,” Darcy said.

Councilwoman Jan Heidt, who lives in Sand Canyon where Sunday’s accident occurred, said the city has urged the U.S. Forest Service to stop the drinking parties that frequently occur in area campgrounds.

The nine people involved in Sunday’s accident had spent the night partying till dawn at Live Oak Campground in Angeles National Forest before speeding down Sand Canyon and ramming into the tree, authorities said.

“We’ve asked them to provide more security, more controls,” Heidt said.

City spokeswoman Gayle Ortiz noted that Santa Clarita has a higher-than-average population of youth--nearly 40%, compared to 26% nationally. And nearly half the youth of junior high and high school age reported using drugs or alcohol within the previous month, according to a recent survey by the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita.

“Santa Clarita is not unique in that, but when you have more kids you have a higher chance of more accidents,” Ortiz said.

City officials say there is nothing inherently unsafe about the local roads. But without major freeways bisecting the Valley, Santa Clarita residents rely on wide streets like Soledad Canyon Road to travel across town--and high speeds are not uncommon in stretches.

Soledad Canyon Road was widened about 20 years ago from a narrow, winding, two-lane route to four lanes, then to six lanes with a center divider a few years ago, said Ortiz.

It carves east-west across the Valley floor and is lined with fast-food restaurants, gas stations and mini-malls, punctuated with traffic lights and busy intersections.

The intersection where the most recent accident occurred--Soledad Canyon Road at Flowerpark Drive--has been on a list of corners waiting for traffic lights for two years. But the light has not been installed because it was lower than others on a priority list, according to Rabie Rahmani, acting city traffic engineer for the city of Santa Clarita.

The engineer said he will review the report from the latest accident before determining whether road improvements are needed but said the road was repaved three years ago and there is no evidence of structural problems.

“It is a safe road. There is nothing wrong with the roadway. There is clear visibility and stop signs,” Rahmani said.

City records indicate that there was one accident at the intersection in 1999, none in 1998, one in 1997 and two in 1995.

Rahmani said he did not have immediate access to records for the entire eight-mile stretch of Soledad Canyon Road, including other stretches where the other four fatalities occurred.

Thursday evening--after hearing Lisa Jones had died that afternoon--deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s local traffic division did special enforcement on the stretch of Soledad Canyon Road, giving 13 tickets and 13 warnings in a three-hour period.

They did the same thing Friday on Sand Canyon Road near where Sunday’s accident occurred. But Shapiro said a period of heavy enforcement only slows things down for a short time.

Driving down Soledad Canyon Road on Friday, Shapiro could point to the places where past fatal accidents have occurred. There’s the place near the park where two teenage girls, distracted as they talked, flipped their Jeep. One of the girls died. There’s the place--very close to Tuesday’s accident--where a 21-year-old pizza delivery man in a van with bald tires crashed in the rain and died in November 1998.

And now there is another makeshift roadside shrine with flowers and a lonely wooden cross.

A color photocopy shows Lisa looking coyly out at those who stop. She wanted to be a model, Shapiro said. They found her portfolio in the overturned pickup.

Underneath is a message from Brandon: “I’m so sorry about all this mess. I would rather it be me than such a beautiful girl like you. You were so pretty . . . “

Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this story.

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Roadway Accidents

Over the past five weeks, teenagers have been involved in several traffic accidents that have resulted in death or serious injury.