By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief
Once again, the infamous “crash cushion” safety tunnel at the Chautauqua-Pacific Coast Highway intersection has been shattered by an anonymous driver who left glass and metal in their vehicle’s wake.
Once again, the crash cushion’s steel bars were twisted out into a jutting shard that damaged even more vehicles during rush hour on Thursday April 20.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
Within hours the shard was shaved away by Caltrans, the state transportation agency which maintains the trouble-prone engineering feature.
Yet the hazard caused by the safety wall remains.
Palisadian Alicia Albek said her daughter’s car was ripped along its passenger side by the shard, leaving her in deep shock. “If there was just a cement wall there it would have scraped the car not opened it up like that. Horrible. It needs to be redesigned. So messed up.”
The steel bars were last twisted out of shape three weeks ago, when a driver lost her wing mirror which cost $300 to replace and at least two trucks reported ‘substantial’ damage.
Lou Kamer, Pacific Palisades Community Council ‘at large’ representative who has worked on improving safety along Chautauqua, said the crash cushion is damaged on a regular basis.
He has suggested that Caltrans replace the bars with another type of safety wall, an energy-absorbing polyethylene barrier which, when damaged, is less likely to spread the destruction.
“It’s just a badly engineered intersection,” he said.
Caltrans offers compensation for damage less than $10,000 but drivers must produce strong evidence they were victims of the shard rather than it’s cause.
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