A number of factors make navigating city traffic risky
CITY HALL Police officers responsible for investigating serious traffic accidents have so far this year responded to 13 major incidents involving pedestrians and autos, six of which resulted in the deaths of those struck.
That number is considerably higher than in years past, with the elderly representing the majority of drivers and victims, raising concerns about pedestrian safety and the ability of elderly drivers to navigate congested streets.
“Fatal accidents are way up this year and we are seeing predominantly elder victims, with many times elderly drivers striking them,” said SMPD Sgt. Larry Horn, supervisor of the Major Accident Response Team.
“The number one factor tends to be failure to yield to a pedestrian in the cross walk,” Horn said. “That should serve as a reminder to people that just because you are in a crosswalk doesn’t alleviate you of the responsibility to look around because sometimes, for one reason or another, drivers just don’t see you …You’ve got to have your head on a swivel and your eyes peeled for what’s going on around you.”
The latest fatal accident occurred over the weekend when a 94-year-old driver struck and killed an 80-year-old female who was walking across Colorado Avenue at 16th Street in a marked crosswalk.
The accident occurred around 4 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 1. The victim was walking across Colorado when she was hit by a 1957 Ford Thunderbird being driven west on Colorado. The driver was not injured in the crash and voluntarily submitted to a blood test, the results of which haven’t been released.
The accident is still under investigation. Horn said the setting sun may have been a factor.
AND THE LIST GOES ON Another fatal accident occurred in October at the corner of Lincoln and Ocean Park boulevards. It involved a 91-year-old woman who was struck by a 78-year-old driver while she crossed the street.
In May, officers responded to the intersection of Fourth Street and Idaho Avenue after a 37-year-old female driver traveling southbound on Fourth struck a 90-year-old man walking in an unmarked crosswalk.
In March, officers responded to the corner of Second Street and Colorado when a 40-year-old female pedestrian was hit by an MTA bus while walking in a marked crosswalk.
And in January, police responded to the corner of Euclid Street and Santa Monica Boulevard where an elderly man in his 70s was struck by a driver around the same age as he walked through a marked crosswalk. The pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene.
The accident that most people remember took place at the Farmers’ Market on Arizona Avenue in July of 2003. In that incident, 86-year-old George Russell Weller plowed through a crowded market, killed 10 and injuring scores more.
During Weller’s criminal trial late last year, his defense attorneys argued that Weller suffered from “pedal error,” meaning he became confused and disoriented while at the wheel, pushing the brake instead of the gas. Weller was convicted of gross negligence and is serving five years probation.
STEPS TAKEN City Hall has tried over the years to make streets more pedestrian friendly by installing lighted crosswalks to attract drivers’ attention, creating medians along wide, busy streets to give pedestrians a place to stand if they can’t make it across the roadway before the light changes, forming bumpouts at corners to force drivers to slow down and take wider right turns, and increasing signage, said Lucy Dyke, City Hall’s transportation planning manager.
City Hall also requires developers to place driveways in locations that will not severely impact walkability and will ask some to widen sidewalks or make other improvements.
Residents have complained that the lighted crosswalks are often broken, something City Hall has worked to address, said Dyke. The company that developed the lighted crosswalks will be replacing all of the lights in the roadway with new ones starting Dec. 17 because they believe there may have been a manufacturing error causing them to malfunction.
City Hall has also installed a wireless crosswalk at Ninth Street and Santa Monica with hopes that the new technology will work better and not break down as often as those using wired connections.
Getting the elderly to give up their licenses can be challenging as many see driving as a form of independence and do not want to become a burden on their families, asking them for rides to the grocery store or to the doctor’s office, Horn said.
“They love to tell us that they’ve been driving for 50 years and they’ve never had an accident,” Horn said. “The reality is, if they continue to drive in the same way and nothing out of the ordinary happens, then they probably won’t have an accident. But that isn’t the case.”
Horn said elderly drivers can do fine during normal driving conditions, but if something happens unexpectedly, such as a bicyclist swerving into the roadway or a pedestrian running across the street, en elderly driver cannot react as quickly as they used to and can end up in an accident.
SMPD officers routinely meet with groups of elderly drivers to talk with them about the dangers of the road and have them go through a simulator to test their skills.
“When something unusual happens, their reflexes aren’t what they used to be and they are not able to make the right decision quick enough,” Horn said. “The end result is a terrible tragedy.”
With the nation’s aging population, society doesn’t have a choice but to face what can be a sensitive topic, which is taking someone’s driving privilege away.
The AARP issued a list of 10 tips that family members should use to determine if a loved one is getting too old to drive. They include frequent “close calls,” finding dents or scrapes on the family car, fences, mailboxes and garage doors, difficulty seeing the sides of the road when looking straight ahead, trouble moving the foot from gas to brake or confusing the two, difficulty turning the head to check over the shoulder while backing up and changing lanes, and an increase in traffic tickets.
Seniors are encouraged to take alternative forms of transportation such as the Big Blue Bus or Dial-a-Ride, a program sponsored by City Hall and provided by WISE Senior Services.
Dial-a-Ride is a shared-ride, curb-to-curb transportation service for seniors, age 60 or older, and adults and teens, age 13 or older, with a disability. The para-transit service covers all of Santa Monica, as well as providing limited fixed route service to UCLA Medical Center, Kaiser West Los Angeles, Westside Center for Independent Living in Mar Vista, Venice Family Clinic and the Brentwood Veteran’s Administration Medical Center. The one-way fare is 50 cents.
While elderly drivers seem to be involved in most of the serious accidents so far this year, Horn said other drivers shouldn’t feel as if they are off the hook. Everyone needs to be more aware of what they are doing when they are behind the wheel, Horn said.
Younger drivers can be just as easily distract while driving as the elderly. A survey by University of California researches found that a third of teenage drivers admitted that they have been distracted by young passengers while driving, with the most common distraction being talking, yelling, arguing or being loud.
Twenty-two percent of the drivers said they were distracted by passengers doing things like “fooling around,” “messing around,” or “being stupid.”
Even wrestling and dancing in the car were distractions teen drivers reported.
“Teenagers may find risky behavior exciting or funny, but it is clear from research that adolescent drivers with teenage passengers have a higher risk of crashes,” said Katherine Heck, the 4-H Youth Development specialist at UC Davis who co-chaired the study.“The distractions that young drivers told us about may be a reason for their higher risk.”
In California, new drivers under the age of 18 may not carry teenage passengers for the first year after receiving a driver’s license. They also may not drive between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., a period shown to be particularly dangerous for teenage drivers.
As for elderly drives, the Department of Motor Vehicles allows family members or concerned friends to ask that a loved one be reexamined to see if they are still capable of driving.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.