Call Boxes

Some of Ventura County's busiest highways run through rural and sparsely populated areas, where public telephones and other conveniences are almost nonexistent. So county officials have decided to install emergency call boxes on such roads beginning early next year, said Christopher Stephens, an official with the county Transportation Commission. The county has already installed call boxes on all six of the freeways that crisscross the region.

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July 10, 1965: Highway officials inaugurated the emergency call box system on the Harbor Freeway between the interchange of the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways and El Segundo Boulevard. "The system includes 80 boxes spaced at quarter-mile intervals. The telephones are connected to the police switchboard," The Times reported. Freeway call boxes were first proposed in 1959 by Los Angeles County director of communications Maurice E. Kennedy.

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In March, 1989, 1,150 emergency call boxes were put up along the county's freeways by San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies (SAFE). Since that time, the boxes have been coming down. In an average month, eight call boxes in San Diego County will either be knocked down by cars or damaged by vandals, according to Gary Wells, SAFE's project manager. "The SAFE board did anticipate that the boxes would occasionally be hit by wayward motorists," Wells said. "It really wasn't a surprise."

Citing a reserve fund of about $1.5 million, a Ventura County transportation commissioner is questioning whether the county should continue charging a $1 vehicle registration fee to help pay for highway call boxes. "That's an awful lot of money to be sitting in an account," said Frank Schillo, who serves on the commission and the County Board of Supervisors. "Why do we keep it if we don't use it?"

Competitive bidding was not necessary in the awarding of a contract to install call boxes on San Diego County freeways, an appellate court ruled Friday. The decision could clear the way for Comarco Inc. of Anaheim to begin work on the system, which has been delayed for about five months. Cubic Communications Inc. had obtained an injunction preventing the work from proceeding and requiring San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies to seek competitive bids on the contract.

With a plan to install emergency call boxes along San Diego's freeways temporarily stymied by legal hurdles, a San Diego County agency on Monday decided to take preliminary steps toward rebidding the troubled project even as it pursues its courtroom appeals.

The emergency call boxes sprinkled along Southern California's freeways are stations of desperation to most motorists, phone booths for the unfortunate. But to Don Bailey, those phones ring up big sales. Bailey is chief executive of Comarco Inc., the Yorba Linda company that designs and manufactures 75% of the emergency call boxes in the nation. As part of a plan to expand that market share, Comarco agreed last week to acquire the call box business of GTE Cellular Communication Corp.

Two days on the job and LeeAnne Zirbel was frantic. Her car broke down on a busy freeway, and the call box at the roadside was useless to the hearing-impaired woman. "I tried the call box several times, but it didn't work out," she said. "I thought I was talking to a wall." Help eventually came, but only in the form of a passing highway patrolman.

July 10, 1965: Highway officials inaugurated the emergency call box system on the Harbor Freeway between the interchange of the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways and El Segundo Boulevard. "The system includes 80 boxes spaced at quarter-mile intervals. The telephones are connected to the police switchboard," The Times reported. Freeway call boxes were first proposed in 1959 by Los Angeles County director of communications Maurice E. Kennedy.

About half the call boxes on Orange County's roads will be removed by July because motorists increasingly use cellular telephones in emergencies, transportation officials decided Monday. The Orange County Transportation Authority board approved a plan to reduce the number of yellow call boxes to no more than 600 on freeways and state highways. OCTA will space the phones every half mile instead of every quarter mile, as previously required.

When a tire flew across the freeway and smashed into his car, Daniel Arellanes quickly parked, left his injured girlfriend and ran across several lanes of traffic toward a call box in a desperate attempt to get help. Being deaf, and noticing that the box was not equipped with a teletypewriter, Arellanes tried yelling into the phone and banging the headset against the box, thinking the noise would draw help. Finally, he left the phone off the hook.

Even as the use of freeway call boxes declines, officials statewide are preparing to spend millions of dollars to upgrade the system to improve links with new telecommunications systems. The systems could be upgraded from analog to digital signals within two years to meet new standards in the telecommunications industry. The L.A. County system, the state's largest, costs about $2 million to run annually. The signal upgrade could cost a total of $8 million.

Roadside emergency phones will become fewer and farther between along Bay Area highways under a plan approved by the region's transportation agency. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted to remove about 1,350 emergency call boxes on the advice of the agency's freeway and expressway service panel. The first phones could be disconnected as soon as July, leaving behind 2,150 and saving the agency about $4.7 million over five years.

Moving ahead with plans to make highway call boxes more accessible to the disabled, the Orange County Transportation Authority on Wednesday earmarked more than $3 million to buy and maintain communication equipment for the deaf and speech impaired. Board members unanimously approved a contract with Comarco Wireless Technologies Inc. to install typewriter-style devices at about 1,200 emergency call boxes in the county. The equipment costs about $2.

Dear Traffic Talk: I use the Antelope Valley freeway for my daily commute and I am concerned about the lack of emergency call boxes along the construction corridor between Canyon Country and the Agua Dulce/Vasquez Rocks area. Presumably, the boxes have been removed to facilitate the widening project. However, this is a remote and isolated stretch of freeway. Being stranded on this stretch of freeway could cause grief and anxiety among motorists.

Tracey Wyatt-Hazel considered herself lucky last November after a delivery truck dropped a large wooden pallet in front of her car on the freeway and caused her to swerve out of control. For one thing, Wyatt-Hazel and her 9-month-old son, Brandon, were uninjured in the accident that left her Nissan with two flat tires after it hit the wooden block.

For the vast majority of motorists, freeway call boxes are a welcome sight in an emergency, but not for Greg Winterbottom. The wheelchair user couldn't get to most of them if his life or anyone else's depended on it. Berms and guardrails block his path. Some phones are mounted too high to reach. The freeway shoulders at other call boxes are so narrow he can't even get out of his car.