Knocking on wood, I am extremely lucky to never have been in a vehicle accident. It's not that I'm a good driver, though I drive as carefully as I can and never, ever use the phone in the car. All it takes is reaching down to hit the tuner or skip a track on the cd player----take your attention away from the highway for two seconds and you cover a lot of ground---ground in which someone could swerve into your path, or an obstruction previously unseen can appear in front of you.
I've been reporting traffic in Southern California since 1995. Right now I am on two San Diego stations in the afternoon, and Sirius Satellite radio traffic channels for LA, Seattle and San Diego in the evenings. Sometimes I fill in as Ann Phibian on the amazing K-Frog in beautiful San Bernardino county. And yes, I do think it's beautiful like the rest of Southern California...the mountains are breathtaking and Southern California is gorgeous all the way through. It was sacred ground to the Indians and there are few better climates on earth, though it heats up Inland in the summers and the nights are balmy. Sometimes I think moving east would be a nice way to get out of the LA madness. Anyway.
For the longest time, despite being a traffic reporter, I have used surface streets (or the sidewalk when I lived next to work) and avoided the highways. That's a lot more easy to calculate when it comes to travel times, because if there's an accident, you might just be screwed taking the freeway. Surface streets, you can dodge into side streets if you know the drive or otherwise squeak out of a backup. Not so on the freeway. But I also saw very few surface street accidents----however they happen all the time, and might be as lethal. I have seen (and heard) some awful ones. I live near a major Hollywood intersection in a nightlife district and one night we heard a crash that killed someone. The sound is horrifying. A real counterpoint to the wonderful commercials showing shiny vehicles soaring over mountain roads.
Since my company moved to Sherman Oaks I've been taking the Ventura Freeway to get to work. And it's an eye-opener for me. Tuesday I saw a horrible accident on the other side of the freeway, on the 101 south at Lankershim. The car looked burned and totaled and was crumpled like a can. When I got to work I checked CHP's CAD website
(an excellent resource for anyone checking driving conditions) and saw that the accident had happened at 10:30 am. When I passed by, it was 2:20 pm and they were still on scene investigating. The freeway was backed up, barely moving, for miles. Everyone was slowing down automatically. It's very hard not to look when something is right there, that could happen to you. Looky-loo traffic, as we call it, is really annoying---but I don't know that there's any way to mitigate it.
In fact I wonder quite often if there's a way to mitigate the daily mayhem out there. The drive is so much more dangerous than people realize, especially if they're talking on phones. The distraction factor is deadly, yet I see people blithely ignore the road while talking happily away, swerving and braking and toodling along at 45 in the center lane. Or stepping off the curb staring into their stupidphones (sorry, it really bothers me) and totally ignoring traffic. (If you go to that link, you'll find raging arguments in the comments section over whether pedestrians or drivers are more at fault. Answer: every situation is different. Both pedestrians and drivers are distracted on the road, and both are distracted by hand-held gadgets. Stepping into traffic without looking is something I see ALL the time--in fact before I started writing this post I was talking to a colleague who brought that up without prompting as we were discussing surface street dangers.
He said, "I see it all the time. People just step right off the curb bopping along with their earbuds in or looking at their phone and they never look up. It's like 'lucky you that I'm paying attention because otherwise you might be toast.'"
"I see it a lot too," I agreed.
I mentioned the L.A. Times story linked above titled "L.A. drivers have high rate of fatal pedestrian, cyclist crashes" and he said, "Yep, I read that one too."
The title implies it's the drivers with the problem and the one thing that can't be ignored is that the drivers, not the pedestrians, are the ones operating heavy machinery, and they, I believe, have the greater responsibility to look where they're going. Perhaps pedestrians are used to the courtesy that drivers show them in L.A. I do see drivers looking and checking at intersections, and I do walk on these city streets every week if not every single day. And I have to cross too. And usually, usually, drivers pay attention and try to make eye contact with pedestrians---is my own experience. In pedestrian-heavy areas I find L.A. drivers to be more than courteous. They are more careful there than they are on the freeway, in my opinion.
And yes, I've thought about this a lot at this point. Mostly by way of wondering what could be done to prevent these terrible deaths, which are an epidemic no one calls attention to very often. Traffic deaths are so commonplace--maybe an average of seven a week in L.A. County---that they have faded into the background. There are much more sensational "dangers" that people like to think about, and I'm guilty too---9/11, nuclear energy and so forth. But these are preventable tragedies that happen every single day.
Preventable.
What can we do?
"bill.vodka" commented on the L.A. Times story with an interesting idea for bike pathways:
If cars have a network of freeways, why can't bikes in LA be linked together by dedicated bike paths instead of these bike lanes on busy roads. Would you seriously ride a bike on Venice Blvd or on Sepulveda?
This way cyclists don't have to worry about cars. Cars don't worry about cyclists. Angry confrontations averted. Dedicated bike paths can also be incorporated with walking areas and they are good for pedestrians too (provided the cyclists don't act too entitled toward pedestrians on "their" bike path which they often do)
....The accident I passed on the freeway today horrified me. As I was heading north on the Ventura Freeway, approaching Laurel Canyon, traffic started bunching up to the left, and I hit my signal and started merging right to avoid the bunchup. So I was in the third lane when I passed the accident.
The first thing I saw was the woman sitting in the center divider, the extremely narrow space between the concrete meridian and the left lane. It's not a breakdown lane by any means--there's no room there at all. She was scooched down, not seated but not standing, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. She was a pretty Asian woman with dark hair and she did not look injured---but she was beside herself. As I passed her hands came away from her face and I saw her just bawling her eyes out. The car, immediately in front of her, was crumpled in the front. There was only that one car stopped. In front of the car, a man was standing, punching buttons on his cell phone. Had he not been standing there, I would have gone to the left lane, hit reverse, and helped her. As it was, I almost stopped anyway to help and to tell her to get the hell out from in front of the car, where she was sitting inches from oncoming traffic. Apparently neither of them thought she was in danger where she was sitting, and people were slowing down, but if this happens to you, get sheltered behind whatever you can, namely your vehicle. Don't sit in oncoming traffic.
Please believe it---people get killed that way. People get killed, in fact, on the side of the freeway all the time. A breakdown lane is no guarantee of safety. Besides the cars, there are also violent assholes who will gun you down if they're in the wrong mood: witness the death of Bill Cosby's son Ennis:
On the evening of January 16, 1997, Cosby was on his way to visit his friend Stephanie Crane when his Mercedes Benz got a flat tire along Interstate 405, Los Angeles. He pulled his dark-green Mercedes SL600 convertible near the Bel Air freeway off-ramp on Skirball Center Drive and phoned Crane, explaining what had happened. Crane drove out to meet Cosby and focused the lights of her vehicle on the Mercedes's flat tire to illuminate it.[citation needed]
As Cosby was changing the tire, Mikhail Markhasev, an 18 year old Ukrainian immigrant (who worked at a nearby restaurant, had a previous criminal record, and whom happened to be nearby using a pay phone at a commuter lot) approached the driver-side window of Crane's vehicle and pulled a .38 caliber handgun on her. Crane initially sped away 20–50 feet down the street but then turned around to retrieve Cosby. By the time Crane got back to Cosby's vehicle, he had been shot in the head. Crane saw Markhasev running away down the street but was unable to describe him, except to say that he resembled a character in the film Dead Man Walking.[citation needed]
Markhasev had come to the U.S. eight years earlier (legally) as a Russian refugee and was not a U.S. citizen. Since arriving, Markhasev had served time in a California Youth Authority camp on an assault conviction and had just been released from the facility in September 1996. He also had several other arrests as a juvenile while in the U.S.
In the aftermath of Cosby's death, America's Most Wanted and The National Enquirer offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the killer's arrest. One of Markhasev's co-workers phoned the Enquirer, giving Markhasev's name and telling them that he had bragged the night of the killing that before work he'd shot a black man and that it was on the news.
Driving is not a joke. It is not a casual exercise. When I came into work today, I opened up CHP's site right away to see if someone was on the accident. They respond very quickly as far as I can tell----they do a great job. Their listing looked like this as of 3:23 pm. Lots of code in here. But from what I can tell from the writing below, someone stopped very soon after I passed the accident. I passed the collision at 2:20 and saw the guy with the cell phone. CHP entered the notification online at 2:24. By 2:27, someone else had stopped to help. By 2:32, yet another vehicle had stopped on that busy, dangerous freeway.
Whoever stopped also put themselves in danger--another reason I didn't stop, though had I not been on the way to work I would have circled around and pulled up behind the victim. Ambulance was called at 2:35. The CHP log indicates that at least two people besides the driver called Highway Patrol. CHP officers arrived on scene at 2:38. They cleared it off to the side by 2:47. They "run a break" to do that---stopping traffic temporarily while the vehicle is moved to the shoulder area. The notation at 2:58 shows that this was an injury accident. The woman's injuries did not appear serious, but she did appear to be either hysterical or in pain.
2:58 PM 9 [18] [Appended, 14:58:07] TC W/INJ''S - XFER LAPD [Shared]
2:48 PM 8 [16] 1039 MID VALLEY - ETA 15-20 [Shared]
2:47 PM 7 [15] PER 56-170B - PLS ROLL 1 1185 BT RT [Shared]
2:40 PM 6 [14] PER 56-100B - ROLL LAFD [Shared]
2:35 PM 5 [9] [Notification] [CHP]-PRIVATE AMBULANCE 97 REQ ETA
2:32 PM 4 [12] [Appended, 14:37:32] [3] DUPE REPT ADVSD THREE VEHS STOPPED HERE
2:31 PM 3 [6] [Notification] [CHP]-PER DUPE CALLER - 2 VEHS BLKG CD/#1 LN
2:27 PM 2 [1] 2 VEH BLKG SLOW LN
2:24 PM 1 [10] [Appended, 14:37:32] [1] SOLO VEH HIT CD WALL // BLU TOYT COA
Unit Information
2:32 PM 8 Unit Assigned
2:32 PM 7 Unit At Scene
2:38 PM 6 Unit Assigned
2:38 PM 5 Unit At Scene
2:47 PM 4 Unit Cleared
2:47 PM 3 Unit Assigned
2:47 PM 2 Unit At Scene
3:03 PM 1 Unit Cleared
Click here for Don Thompson's unbelievable photo of an accident on the 134 portion of the Ventura Freeway (no gore, just very strange).
Four Killed On 134 Ventura Freeway in Eagle Rock, 8.13.12:
EAGLE ROCK - A fourth victim died today after a vehicle that may have experienced a blowout went over the side of the Ventura (134) Freeway in Eagle Rock and plunged onto the street below, authorities said.
The latest fatality was an adult hospitalized after the crash, which occurred around 6:55 p.m. Sunday on the eastbound 134 at Figueroa Street, said coroner's Lt. Joe Bale.
Three people, a man, a woman and a girl, were pronounced dead at the scene, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said, and a 55-year- old man, a 36-year-old woman and a 6-year-old girl were taken to hospitals.
The accident victims were all in the same vehicle, possibly a minivan, Humphrey said. The vehicle ended up on Figueroa Street, some 75-100 feet below the freeway.
The California Highway Patrol investigation took much of the night and kept all or part of the eastbound Ventura Freeway closed for hours at Figueroa Street, according to the CHP. Two lanes were reopened at 9:20 p.m. Sunday, but the others not until just before 2 a.m. today.
A blown tire is a possible cause of the crash, CHP Officer Adam Eggleston said.
"A witness observed possible tire debris," he said. "The vehicle lost control, began to flip, rotated approximately three times and a child was ejected."
Witness Andrew Gutierrez told ABC7 it was surreal to see the vehicle fly 75 to 100 feet from the freeway, and he tried to help the people inside. "It's like a
movie, it's like a dream, you know. You just turn around, there's dead people. You feel for them `cause you don't know them."
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