By Clarence Cromwell
No one was murdered in Los Gatos last year, but two people lost their lives in motorcycle wrecks.
The town may be a relatively safe haven, but auto accidents here injure scores of people and kill a couple of them every year. As Police Chief Larry Todd put it: "You're just as dead whether you were killed in a traffic accident or somebody shot you."
Continuing efforts to reduce accident casualties, the Town Council accepted a speed study Feb. 3 and readopted a speed-limit ordinance under the town's Motor Vehicles and Traffic code. The newest version of the ordinance sets the speed on 124 streets, changing the limit on only one: On the stretch of Los Gatos Boulevard between Lark Avenue and Samaritan Drive, the limit will increase from 35 mph to 40 mph. Town engineers calculated that the street would be safe at 40 mph.
The remaining streets had to be surveyed to maintain enforcement efforts. If the town wants to use radar to write speeding tickets, it must first undertake a radar speed survey to figure out how fast most drivers travel. A speed limit can't be enforced by radar unless 85 percent of the cars on the road drive under the speed limit during the speed survey, state law dictates. That law stops cities from setting ridiculously low speed limits and reaping a fortune in traffic ticket revenue, Director of Building and Engineering Services Scott Baker said. He explained that most drivers travel at safe speeds by unconsciously judging the size of the road, traffic and other factors.
The survey revealed three speed alleys along major streets, where the council decided to maintain current speed limits. Those are stretches of road where many drivers exceed the speed limit, but where engineers found that the limit could not be safely raised.
* Most drivers speed at 5-10 mph over the limit on the part of Los Gatos Boulevard between Highway 9 and Main Street, where signs say 25 mph is legal; it may appear safe, but there are bike lanes along the street and school students walking and biking to Los Gatos High School, town reports say. That section of Los Gatos Boulevard was the site of two accidents in 1995.
* Along Winchester Boulevard , between Lark and Shelburne, most cars travel 33-43 mph, although the limit is 35. Traffic Data Services recommended raising the speed limit, but town engineers asked the council to keep the current limit, because the road has hills and curves, and a wellspring underneath leaves the pavement wet during winter months. The stretch was the site of three crashes in 1995.
* The most dangerous speed alley is along Lark Avenue, between Highway 17 and Winchester, where 15 accidents happened in 1995. Most drivers travel 32-41 mph, although the limit is 30 mph.
Todd's comment about car wrecks reflects the danger traffic accidents pose here: About a third of the injuries in Los Gatos requiring a 911 call involved a car crash during 1996, police department and county records show.
Todd called traffic a significant concern, saying auto accidents are the most common cause of sudden death in small cities. In general, residents of small cities are also frequently injured or suffer property damage in accidents, Todd said.
Los Gatos police statistics support the statements: During the past five years, Los Gatos had two homicides but six fatal traffic accidents, according to police department statistics. As for injuries, 11 accidents involved at least one injury during 1996, whereas 225 medical calls went out for injuries unrelated to car accidents in Los Gatos, according to Operations Chief Diana Pell, of the county's 911 communications center.
Like crime, traffic accidents in Los Gatos have decreased during the past four years, from a high of 698 in 1992 down to 504 total collisions in 1996.
Todd said the department wrote 2,581 courtesy citations in Los Gatos during the first 11 months of 1996. It wrote 1,439 tickets. The department's traffic officer regularly cites speeders using a radar gun, and some patrol officers may use radar to stop speeding problems on their patrol beats, especially if residents of a certain neighborhood complain.
Both traffic deaths last year involved motorcycles.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, February 12, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.