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
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.
