CHP JOINS CRACKDOWN PLANNED FOR 138.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Daily News Staff Writer

With radar guns in hand, an airplane overhead and a string of officers ready to write tickets, California Highway Patrol officials declared Thursday their commitment to lessening deaths along Highway 138.

A CHP airplane has been assigned to search for speeders and reckless motorists from the air and, on the ground, a special CHP unit from Los Angeles and motorcycle officers will augment existing patrols that local officials announced just Tuesday that they were strengthening.

``We are going to enforce that 50 miles of highway as a high priority for the next several years,'' Southern Division CHP Chief Ed Gomez said at a Palmdale City Hall news conference. ``The California Highway Patrol's mission is to save lives.''

Thursday's announcements echoed those made Tuesday by local officials who said at least three radar-equipped patrol cars will be assigned to the highway during day and evening shifts, and extra patrols on the weekends.

A predominantly two-lane road that forms a shortcut for San Fernando Valley residents heading for Las Vegas, four have died on Highway 138 in the past two months, 24 in the past three years and 34 since 1993 - leading some to call it ``Blood Alley.''

CHP officials said their extra patrols will concentrate on times and days when traffic violations like speeding and unsafe passing are most frequent.

The augmented patrols come as local officials have formed a task force concentrating on improving the highway, which was widened to four lanes in some stretches in the early 1990s and for which further widening is slated, but not until 2002.

Highway 138 Safety Corridor Task Force members, who include state and local officials, and area residents, took a bus tour Thursday along the highway.

``Highway 138 is a death way,'' said Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, who took the lead in forming the panel. ``It's time for us to take care of that, both in the long run and for the short term.''

Task force members have asked the California Department of Transportation to investigate temporary modifications, such as restriping the lanes, adding warning signs, installing rumble strips, and adding traffic turnouts and turning lanes.

Officials maintain that many of the highway's deaths could be prevented if drivers paid more attention. They urge motorists to slow down, stay sober, drive defensively and turn on their headlights - a way to become more visible to oncoming drivers.

An analysis of the highway's 12 fatal crashes over the past three years - the only records immediately available - show they clustered at just two spots: 96th Street East, on the eastern edge of Littlerock, and around the highway's double curve at 175th Street East near Llano.

Five crashes were at or near 96th Street East, including a pedestrian run over while walking in the highway, and five at or near the double curves. The 11th crash was at the Big Rock Wash crossing east of Pearblossom, and the 12th on the undulating stretch east of the junction with Highway 18.

Of the dozen crashes, three were blamed on speeding, four on motorists driving on the wrong side of the road or unsafe passing, two on unsafe turns, one on driving under the influence, one on running a stop sign, and one on a pedestrian walking in the roadway, records show.

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PHOTO (Color in AV Edition only) California Highway Patrol Officer Paul Peterson talks to a motorist Thursday on Highway 138 as part of new speeding crackdown.

Bhavna Mistry/Daily News