Stop passing stop signs

Chris Epting was driving through the three-way stop at Heil Avenue and Saybrook Lane when an SUV nearly broadsided him. Three girls in the car were all holding separate conversations on cell phones, the driver actually achieving a “rare drinking/smoking/cell-phoning trifecta” while behind the wheel, Epting said.

These type of stop-sign runners seemed to be occurring all too often to the Huntington Harbour resident. So he decided to take the matter in his own hands.

On the evening of Jan. 14, Epting walked out to the three-way intersection with a digital camera and started filming. The next day he returned during daylight hours and recorded again.

Epting posted his two videos the next day on YouTube, the popular free video-sharing website. In the five minutes of daytime footage titled “California Roll,” Epting captured at least 50 cars, half of which barely slowed before cruising through the three-way stop.

One of the vehicles in the video was a tow truck that seemed to speed up, making a right turn onto Saybrook from Heil. The three-way stop sits at the northwest corner of the Harbour View Elementary School property.

“These stop signs become so forgettable or invisible to people,” Epting said. “You look at those videos and it’s pretty clear.

“My fear is that someday they will have a catastrophic accident at one of these things,” he said.

Epting sent a letter expressing his concerns to City Council, requesting that a red light be hung in the center of the intersection.

“People pay more attention to a blinking red light than a sign,” Epting said.

Police Chief Ken Small was first to respond, via e-mail, providing the department’s traffic collision statistics for the intersection. According to Small, over the last two years, three accidents have occurred at the stop, and not one involving pedestrians.

Even a light may do little to eliminate the heavy roll-stopping in that neighborhood, Huntington Beach traffic investigator Bob Barr said Monday. Drivers tend to get too comfortable when near the area where they live.

“We do get calls on these things, and we send officers out to watch them,” Barr said. Funny thing is, “sometimes we get the people who call us for doing the same thing” they reported to the police, he added.

“I think traffic safety is one of the biggest problems in Huntington Beach,” Small said, adding that having an officer go out and make nine DUI arrests in one shift is very disconcerting.

In 2006, there were 11 traffic-related deaths in Huntington Beach, Barr said.

“We’re dealing with 30 square miles, and we have 16 motor officers [on staff], working sometimes between 6 a.m. in the morning to 2 a.m. in the morning, seven days a week,” Barr said. “We’re thin.”

Police have more important crimes to solve, he said, adding, “they can’t be expected to sit here and write tickets all day at an intersection where each day, hundreds of impatient drivers refuse to actually “STOP,” Epting wrote in the summary of his video posted on YouTube. “Rather, I think it’s up to the city to install a light here…. It’s a recipe for disaster the way more and more people drive.”

To see the video, visit: www.youtube.com/watch?v= M2ElCGEM4vU----------------------------------------------------

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

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