Just when you thought that Kanan Dume Road could not be made any more dangerous, Los Angeles County Public Works has added new chaos to an already unsafe highway. We, longtime Malibuites, are all too familiar with speeding, night racing and the runaway truck hazards that date virtually from the county’s initial construction of the route.
The newest and latest safety hazard has just been inaugurated. We are now confronted with county-installed signalization at Mulholland and Kanan, replete with elaborate ADA-compliant access ramps leading absolutely nowhere. Before one assumes that signaling should improve safety on Kanan Dume, it might be noted that the Kanan Dume approaches to this intersection are blind curves in both directions. Kanan is posted 55 miles per hour, but speeding is the norm. It is only a matter of time before an unsuspecting motorist or “intexticated” scofflaw comes racing through a blind curve and slams into a row of Malibu citizens dutifully waiting at the new red light.
Barely-visible yellow signs and a dim yellow light are utterly inadequate to warn motorists on a 55 mph highway. Road safety is a fundamental civic duty: Our Malibu City Council needs to take immediate action, and demand the county install correct, large and illuminated “prepare to stop” signage, and lower the approaching speed limits. As it is now, a signalized intersection on a high-speed rural highway, approached by blind curves, is a death trap waiting to be sprung. What has been installed exemplifies the worst of bureaucratic incompetence: total disregard for basic road safety engineering. Without prompt correction, some poor Malibuite will soon be killed here; another victim to add to the long history of needless Kanan Dume carnage.
Christopher Carradine