Santa Ana’s Pedestrian Deaths Increase Despite Safety Efforts

Six years after Santa Ana launched a pedestrian safety program, fatalities are rising dramatically, baffling officials who wonder what more can be done.

In other California cities with similar safety education campaigns, pedestrian fatalities have decreased 20%, officials report. But this year in Santa Ana, 13 pedestrians have died -- the same number as in 1997 when the city organized a task force to address the problem, after which pedestrian deaths declined.

Santa Ana’s two most recent pedestrian fatalities occurred Dec. 7 and 8, leaving officials perplexed over how to combat the problem in a working-class neighborhood where pedestrians abound.

“There is no rhyme or reason to it,” Police Sgt. Baltazar De La Riva said of the fatalities. “There’s no one factor that we can look to that would indicate the reason for this high number of fatalities.”

City senior engineer Zed Kekula, who heads the Santa Ana Pedestrian Safety Task Force, said the deaths have forced city officials to reevaluate their safety efforts.

“We want to look at the accident reports to see if there is any pattern we can work with,” Kekula said. “This is a major issue for us and we are trying to be very proactive.... This could have been worse if we had not done what we have been doing.”

An analysis issued in April by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that so many factors contribute to pedestrian deaths, including type of roadway, time of day and use of alcohol, “there is not a single strategy that will reduce pedestrian fatalities. It is a comprehensive approach employing engineering, education and enforcement with the focus on both driver and pedestrian.”

According to the national safety agency, pedestrian fatalities nationwide decreased from 1979 to 2000, and increased slightly in 2001, the last year of report data.

The Santa Ana task force, formed to work with school and community organizations to encourage pedestrian safety, was funded by a $350,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, funneled through UC Irvine.

The university also used some of the money to promote walk-to-school safety days and create a video and learning materials to promote pedestrian safety among adults. The task force sponsored community talks by pedestrian safety experts, funded traffic safety programs for such nonprofit organizations as Latino Health Access, and paid for a mural at Pio Pico Elementary School that promotes pedestrian safety.

Santa Ana also received more than $200,000 in state grants in 2000 to promote pedestrian safety, Kekula said.

The money was used on radio advertising, posters and school safety assemblies featuring the Moving Violator, an actor who demonstrated how such behaviors as jaywalking pedestrians and motorists running red lights or not yielding to pedestrians can have fatal consequences.

But the task force money, including paying for Moving Violator, has dried up, Kekula said, and the city is now looking for new funding.

This year, 30 public agencies received grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety, including the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the cities of Costa Mesa, Garden Grove and Whittier. The grants were offered to create campaigns, like the one in Santa Ana, or to complete projects such as lighting crosswalks.

Since 1996, pedestrian fatalities have declined 20% in communities that received grants to address the problem, said Marilyn Sabin of the state Office of Traffic Safety. Statewide, such deaths declined 12% from 1996, to 702 in 2002, she said.

“We believe our grants lead to accomplishments,” Sabin said. “Perhaps in Santa Ana it didn’t, but we believe our projects are really helping.”

Kekula said two of the 13 local fatalities this year involved pedestrians with high blood alcohol levels, and that addressing that may be one of the tactics city officials consider. Eight of the victims were over 50.

Diane Winn, project manager at UC Irvine’s Child Injury and Traffic Safety Research Group, said Santa Ana’s density increases the chance of pedestrian accidents.

In Santa Ana, there were seven fatalities in 2002, three in 2001, seven in 2000, six in 1999, seven in 1998 and 13 in 1997.

Santa Ana’s most recent pedestrian fatalities were 60-year-old local women. Guadalupe Santiago was struck by a car with a fogged windshield while she was either picking up cans or trying to cross Jackson Street.

Thuy Tran was struck and killed by a motorist as she crossed Euclid Street against a red light at McFadden Avenue.

In both cases, De La Riva said, the pedestrians were at fault and neither driver was charged.

“We teach children to look both ways,” he said. “Now we have to figure out how to teach the same lesson to adults.”