Weeks after a mother and her two children died in a car crash on Highway 154, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) unanimously established a committee to examine ways to make the roadway safer.
At SBCAG’s Nov. 21 meeting, 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said the committee, which is made up of local officials from different jurisdictions, plans to meet for the first time on Dec. 16 at the Veterans Memorial Building in Solvang. Hartmann said that following the crash on Oct. 25, her office was inundated with emails looking for answers to the number of accidents that occur on the roadway.
“We think this is of great importance to the Santa Ynez Valley, but also the whole county,” Hartmann said during the meeting.
During the meeting, Lompoc City Councilmember Jim Mosby questioned whether the SBCAG board plans on creating similar committees for other highways in the county. He pointed out that Highway 1 near Lompoc has had its share of accidents as well.
Fourth District Supervisor Peter Adam questioned the need for specific committees in general, rather than the same level of attention to all roadways in the county.
“I’m failing to see a need for a committee on that highway, we should be aware of the hot spots countywide,” Adam said.
Despite this questioning, Mosby and Adam both voted in favor of creating the committee along with the rest of the board.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is also looking for ways to improve the safety on county roads. During the meeting, CHP officer Jonathan Gutierrez the board about a program CHP started in October 2018, then ran through the end of September, called Safe On All Roads.
This program, which was funded through a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration grant, enabled CHP to deploy additional officers in parts of the county to patrol roadways for impaired drivers on major highways and run educational outreach events on the dangers of driving while impaired.
Gutierrez said that throughout the duration of this program, the number of victims injured and killed in DUI-involved collisions in the county was lower than in previous years. However, there was a sharp increase in late August and September, during which time 29 people were killed or injured, as funding for the program ran out.
“As soon as we had no more hours and we couldn’t put those extra patrols out, our numbers shot through the roof, unfortunately,” Gutierrez said.
The CHP plans to apply for the grant funding again to continue the program during the agency’s next fiscal year, Gutierrez said.
—Zac Ezzone
This article appears in Dec 5-12, 2019.