Edgar Vasquez was 6 when he bounded through a crosswalk in Santa Ana on his way to school and a Chevrolet Monte Carlo slammed into him.
Edgar suffered a broken leg that still hurts him three years later. But to the surprise of his family, police eventually cleared the driver and blamed the accident on the boy.
His case is far from isolated. Santa Ana as well as many other communities blame pedestrians--notably children--far more often than drivers for accidents, guided by a California statute that holds motorists less responsible for such crashes than laws in most states.
Absent from California's vehicle code is a provision carried by at least 34 other states requiring motorists to be especially careful--even to the point of sounding their horns--if they observe children, the disabled or other impaired individuals.
Lacking this language, Santa Ana police have blamed hundreds of accidents over the last decade on children as young as 2 years old--even when they died. They have also assigned fault to pedestrians in dozens of hit-and-run accidents, including at least eight in which the pedestrian died, according to a Times analysis of state traffic data.
Lawmakers in Sacramento and locally are focusing more attention on reducing the number of pedestrian accidents--especially those involving children. This is prompting new scrutiny of the vehicle code and other elements of California's traffic laws.
Consider:
* While the vehicle code doesn't require special care around children, it does demand that drivers "exercise proper control . . . and reduce speed to avoid frightening and to safeguard livestock" that may be on the road.
* And even when police do cite motorists in pedestrian accidents, the punishments are far from harsh. The most common type of pedestrian accident blamed on drivers--when a car strikes someone in a crosswalk--carries a maximum fine of $103 regardless of how severe the injuries are.
That's far less than the $271 fines for running a red light or driving alone in a carpool lane or the $270 fine for littering. When drivers hit pedestrians while speeding or ignoring a stop sign, they pay only the fine for those infractions and no additional penalties.
"It's really frustrating," said Glendale Police Lt. Don Meredith, a member of the Los Angeles County pedestrian safety task force who is pushing for state legislation that would toughen penalties when pedestrians are severely injured. "If someone is negligent and leaves a pedestrian in a real critical injury state, it's not even a slap on the wrist, just a minor fine."
