Sixth U-Turn Fatality in Two Years Sparks Local Concern and Call for Caltrans to Address Issue

• Few Traffic Control Options Are Available That Can Prevent Driver Disregard of the Law

BY HANS LAETZ

Thirty-five miles of bright yellow plastic paddles from McClure Tunnel all the way to Las Posas Road may be the only way to keep motorists from making the type of illegal U-turns on Pacific Coast Highway that have killed six people over two years, one official says.

A 77-year-old woman was the latest casualty, killed at Zuma Beach last week when she was ejected from the vehicle driven by her 80-year-old husband as he made an illegal U-turn at the exact spot where two people were killed by another U-turn accident five months ago.

Locals had complained publicly in 1999 that the state’s removal of a curb median down the center of Pacific Coast Highway at Zuma would lead to an increase in deadly U-turn accidents.

In the past three years, six persons have been killed in accidents on the local stretch PCH caused by illegal U-turns. Records show that most of the drivers were from out of town, but one was a longtime Malibu resident.

“I don’t think there’s any of us in Malibu who hasn’t had someone make a quick, illegal U-turn in front of us to grab that ‘perfect parking place,’” said Trancas resident Lori Gray. She wrote a letter to Caltrans in 1999, and said she will write another plea now to demand that a median of some sort be reinstalled on PCH at Zuma.

Last week, Kim Hyong Mi , 77, of Los Angeles, was killed instantly when she was thrown from a Ford Explorer that was T-boned by a pickup truck traveling on Pacific Coast Highway near Guernsey Avenue, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s office reported. Mi’s body was so badly disfigured in the wreck that longtime motorcycle patrol officers said they were physically sickened.

Her 80-year-old husband and driver of the Explorer, Myung Ho Lee, was treated for cuts and bruises, as were three other passengers. All five persons in that car were Los Angeles residents who reportedly had just finished a day of fishing in the surf.

Segundo Herrera of North Hollywood was driving the Toyota pickup that broadsided the Ford as Lee pulled from out from the parking lane and crossed four lanes and a quadruple set of yellow lines. Deputies said he was also treated and released for cuts and bruises, as seat belts and air bags prevented more-serious injury.

Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Sgt. Philip Brooks said Lee could be cited for failure to yield and making an illegal turn, as state law treats double sets of double lines as a no-turn zone.

“Mr. Lee has not yet been cited, when we finish the paperwork, we will forward it to the District Attorney’s Office for them to determine if charges are to be filed,” Brooks said.

The prosecutor’s decision will weigh the fact that Lee lost his wife, who was ejected from the car and would have suffered only slight injuries had she been wearing her seat belt, Brooks said, as well as his advanced age.

Last December, 67-year-old Malibu architect John Martin made an illegal U-turn at the exact same spot as last week’s accident, a very-slight curve on the 50-mile-per-hour highway about midway between a pair of legal U-turn channels. Also in that case, Martin had been parked and pulled out to be T-boned by a car traveling at the speed limit.

But in that case, the other driver was fatally injured. Joan Carrillo, a 56-year-old woman from Santa Paula, died a week after the wreck.

Just a few weeks earlier, 18-year-old Chase Heger of Laguna Niguel was killed when he made a similar turn in front of a car on a two-lane section of PCH near Deer Creek Road, just west of County Line Beach. The Pepperdine University freshman was a photographer for the school’s Graphic newspaper.

And two Malibu High graduates and lifelong buddies were killed by a U-turning driver in 2005. Keith Naylor, 21, and Tyler Love, 22, were on a motorcycle that was struck by a car driven by an Orange County man in Pacific Palisades, a section of PCH within the Los Angeles city limits.

That driver, Mark Paozella, was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter and is fighting those charges.

Veteran Malibu City Councilmember Ken Kearsley said the U-turn problem has vexed Malibu for decades. “When you have 14 million visitors a year using the highway, many will not realize how fast that traffic is moving,” he said.

“Maybe there should just be those paddles everywhere except where you can make a legal turn,” Kearsley said.

The paddle solution, Brooks said, may be ugly. But their installation near Geoffrey’s and a pair of restaurants on PCH at Point Dume has successfully reduced illegal turns and accidents, he said.

Reinstallation of curbed medians, or more-drastic freeway-style “Jersey barriers” is opposed by firefighters who must often cross the center line to respond to accidents, Brooks said. “They don’t like the curbs because they break their axles on them.”

Fire trucks can drive over the plastic paddles if necessary, as they bounce back, Brooks said.

The longtime traffic expert said the Zuma Beach stretch of state Route 1 is a particularly-dangerous section of road, because of the huge number of persons unfamiliar with the area who park there to go to the beach without paying the $8 charge in the parking lot.

“It’s a public beach and everyone has to have a place to park for free,” he said. “The Coastal Commission would not like it if you banned parking on the side of the road for safety reasons.”

When Caltrans repaved PCH at Zuma Beach in 1999, several residents wrote letters to the state to complain that the removal of the small curbed medians would lead motorists to make illegal U-turns. The state responded that the curbs were causing water to pond in the left lanes during rainstorms.

Even for local resident Gray, PCH “is very confusing—yellow things on some places, concrete curbs on others, and then just plain stripes at Zuma. “Maybe some people think it is OK to make a U-turn unless there is a median.”

Further confusing the situation is a ban on U-turns at some of the legal left turn channels, such as Morning View Drive.

And several of the legal U-turn bays feature power poles close to the shoulder, making it impossible for anything bigger than a motorcycle to complete the turn without stopping and backing up. Trancas residents said the U-turn lane on northbound PCH at Guernsey is a particular hazard of this type.

Caltrans eventually reinstalled a curbed median on PCH between Morning View and Busch drives, and cut drainage channels in it. But the three-quarters of a mile of highway along the rest of Zuma, which is heavily used by people who parallel park along the road, was not given a replacement median.

That stretch of highway includes the spot where the one person was killed last week and the two were killed last December.

CAPTION 1. Photo credit, MSN/Hans Laetz
PADDLE PATROL—Concerned residents are asking whether the installation of yellow plastic paddles to serve as road dividers is needed on stretches of Pacific Coast Highway where errant drivers are making dangerous U-turns.