Crackdowns on Speeders Only the Start : Checkpoints and enforcement in West Valley are not enough; self-policing may be needed

The Los Angeles Police Department recently has cracked down on speeding motorists in the west San Fernando Valley. The results have been both welcome and predictable: about twice as many traffic citations as usual, less speeding, and fewer horrible accidents and fatalities. As usual, it won’t solve the problem. Something more is required.

Talk with the officers assigned to such duty, for example, and they’ll tell you that something else is equally predictable. Once such a crackdown ends, it will only be a matter of weeks, or just days, before the speedometers start creeping up again.

Over the past few months, we’ve done enough informal pacing of cars along Winnetka Avenue to know the truth in that statement. The recent, police-enforced slowdown is quite the anomaly. Normally, until the afternoon rush-hour traffic arrives, anybody driving the posted limit of 35 m.p.h. can quickly feel like a hazardous impediment to traffic flow. At every stoplight, at least one driver can’t wait to hit 50 m.p.h.

Part of the problem is what these streets have been turned into, from a traffic management standpoint. The thoroughfare-type width, and the all too gracious timing of traffic signals on some of these streets often belie their true nature.

The fact is that Winnetka, for example, is residential along much of its length, with school crossings to boot. It should not be regarded as the pause that refreshes after gridlock on the Ventura Freeway, or as the last chance to make some time before getting onto the 101.

To be sure, we’ll need as many crackdowns on speeders as the LAPD can muster, and not just in the West Valley. As evidenced by the tragic and fatal events in Palmdale last weekend, the problem exists throughout northern Los Angeles County.

The awful prevalence of drunk driving in our region also suggests that any increase in so-called sobriety checkpoints would be welcome, as well. These are areas in which police stop motorists and check for signs of intoxication.

But some self-policing is in order here too. The police are obviously stretched thin, so any help that neighborhoods can provide in the reporting of problem motorists, streets and intersections would be of great help in deploying officers.

As of May 15, 47 people had been killed so far this year in traffic accidents in the San Fernando Valley. That doesn’t include statistics from the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, which have had more than their share of tragedies lately.

The San Fernando Valley numbers show that the most dangerous people here weren’t criminals behind a gun or some other weapon, but average folks behind the wheel of a car.