Rancho Santa Fe Road wrecks worry residents

CARLSBAD — Residents concerned about high speeds and fatal accidents are asking for changes on Rancho Santa Fe Road.

The most recent death occurred at 5:30 a.m. on Mother’s Day, when a 27-year-old man rolled his BMW sedan several times and crashed it into a traffic signal pole at Camino Junipero. The driver died and a passenger was badly injured. Authorities said alcohol and a high rate of speed may have been factors.

Two other fatal accidents occurred farther west at Rancho Santa Fe Road and Calle Barcelona, near Mission Estancia Elementary School, one in February 2014 and the other in July 2012. In the 2014 collision a Ford Mustang was ripped in half. The area is in eastern Carlsbad near San Marcos.

“Since I’ve lived there there’s been five fatalities at that intersection,” Shelly Kelly told the Carlsbad Traffic Safety Commission on Monday. “It’s just a natural place where people speed because it’s a long run downhill.”

Kelly and several others addressed the commission on the subject, although because it was not an issue on the agenda the commissioners could not discuss the matter.

Carlsbad City Traffic Engineer Doug Bilse said after the meeting that his department has looked at the Calle Barcelona intersection and proposed a redesigned traffic signal, which will be presented to the commission at its next meeting. That should make traffic flow more efficiently at the intersection, he said, but it may not slow vehicles the way the residents want.

“That street was not designed for slow speeds,” Bilse said. “That’s what we are looking at.”

Speed limits are set according to state guidelines and not at the city traffic engineer’s discretion, he said. They are based upon the type of traffic a road is designed to carry, and the speeds the majority of reasonable drivers travel.

The city could redesign that section of Rancho Santa Fe Road and that might slow drivers down, he said. That suggestion may be discussed if the matter is on the agenda for the commission’s next meeting, which will either be in July or September.

Elizabeth Sanchez, another resident, suggested at the meeting that the city install solar-powered flashing lights to alert people who are driving too fast.

“People don’t realize how fast they are going,” Sanchez said.

Claudia Kuepper, a resident of the La Costa Oaks community, said she and her neighbors are “rattled and shaken” by the recent fatalities.

“We have teenagers who are learning how to drive,” she said, and the parents are warning the teens to use extra caution.

Part of the problem is that people use Rancho Santa Fe Road as a shortcut between Interstate 5 and state Route 78, Kuepper said.

“It is very dangerous,” she said, adding that she’d like to see the speed limit reduced and enforcement increased.