Accident Prevention

He stands tall in a macho pose, wearing dark sunglasses, a denim jacket and a stony stare. He is Roy Huerta, a California Highway Patrol officer at the center of a new CHP safety campaign unveiled Thursday in Santa Ana. But to students and viewers of Spanish-language television in Orange County, he will become known in the coming months as "El Protector," a mysterious figure warning Latinos about the dangers of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Fearing another dam break like the one that killed as many as seven people this week, state officials invoked emergency authority to enter private property and inspect earthen dams on the island of Kauai. As heavy rain rapidly filled reservoirs on the island, the state said dams on Kauai were being severely tested.

Fifteen preschool children sat smiling in blue chairs, wearing red fire hats and hugging brown teddy bears Tuesday during a news conference in front of the Irvine Child Development Center. After a brief appearance they waved to the crowd, got up and walked back to class, leaving behind 15 empty seats, equivalent to the number of young drowning victims last year within the Orange County Fire Authority's reach.

Neighbors say it's a clear-cut case of abuse. But city officials and a local property manager say four centuries-old oak trees must be removed in the interest of public safety. It's too late for debate in the case of two of the trees, which crews with chain saws reduced to stumps early Thursday. But two more are slated to die Sunday or Monday. The Los Angeles Department of Public Works issued a permit for removal of the trees, all at or near the Encino Town Center mall at 17200 Ventura Blvd.

If a full-scale ground battle breaks out in the Persian Gulf War, high-tech weapons systems made by a Hughes Aircraft Co. division here could help U.S. troops avoid two haunting legacies of the Vietnam War: surprise enemy artillery attacks and "friendly fire" casualties. As with other systems in the U.S. arsenal, a ground war in the desert could be the first big combat test of the two Hughes systems, one used to track enemy artillery and the other to keep tabs on friendly troops.

They've tried median barriers, flashing lights and bells, heavy gates and a strong appeal to common sense. Now Metrolink officials are turning to surveillance cameras to keep people from endangering themselves. And they're using the railroad crossing on Chestnut Avenue in Santa Ana near Grand Avenue as a test case in Orange County. Motorists who get caught running the red light at that crossing after April 1 will be issued a $104 ticket.

Those child-resistant cigarette lighters that smokers sometimes curse for their complexity have contributed to a nationwide plunge in the number of lives lost in fires set by children, experts say, though thousands of illegal lighters imported from China through California still find their way to market. Despite a ghastly flurry of deaths in fires nationwide this holiday season, the National Fire Protection Assn.

Disneyland is placing safety warning signs on ride cars throughout the park in the aftermath of the September accident on Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin that left a 4 1/2-year-old Los Angeles County boy with severe brain damage, state officials said Friday. The park installed new cautionary signs Thursday night on Alice in Wonderland cars, hours after a 15-year-old boy from Mesa, Ariz., broke his foot and leg on the attraction.

All elementary school students must wear helmets when riding bicycles to and from school under a new policy adopted Tuesday night by the school board. "This is something that will really make a significant impact on the safety of our children," said Margie Wakeham, an Irvine Unified School District board member. The school board's unanimous action marks the first time a school district in Orange County has mandated bicycle helmet use at its schools.

Jim Landis is not an activist by trade. But since December, when his 18-month-old son nearly drowned in the family's back-yard pool, Landis has compiled page upon page of statistics on toddler drownings. "Did you know that a residential swimming pool is 14 times more likely to cause a death than a single automobile?" Landis asked, pulling out pages of statistics from his beat-up folder of papers and notes.