COUNCIL TOLD BAD DRIVING ENDEMIC : SCHOOL ZONES HIGHLIGHT THREAT.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

You know who you are.

You gun the gas, even on a stale yellow.

You speed. You tailgate. You forget to signal.

You're a bad driver.

But just how many of your kind travel the roads of the Santa Clarita Valley is a matter of opinion.

``Generally speaking, the people in this valley are pretty lousy drivers,'' City Councilwoman Jan Heidt said at Tuesday's council meeting, in response to a resident making a case for speed bumps near Mountainview Elementary School.

Heads bobbed in agreement in the audience.

And Councilwoman Jill Klajic called for parent groups to start driver education campaigns.

But are there really that many bad drivers in the Santa Clarita Valley?

Kelly Enos is an instructor with the Golden Eagle Traffic School in Santa Clarita and a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. He disagrees with the premise that local motorists are bad drivers compared with elsewhere.

``I think they're better,'' he said Wednesday.

Enos said Santa Clarita area motorists are more courteous, pay more attention, and are ``a little more cautious and aware of what's going on around them.''

``I feel a lot safer driving in the valley than in other parts of Los Angeles,'' he said.

Mark Slater, a traffic investigator in the Santa Clarita office of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said it would be difficult to determine whether local drivers really are better or worse, since comparative statistics haven't been crunched.

But Slater acknowledged that there are continued problems around schools - speeding, parking, failure to yield to pedestrians. ``Every school wants us there at the same time,'' he said.

He said sheriff's deputies try to patrol one or two campuses each day and that the schools have tried educating parents through fliers - but neither seems to have a lasting effect, Slater said.

Kathy Wolfson, the principal at Mountainview, said diligence is the key to keeping drivers on the safe side.

``It has to be consistent. We have to keep on it. If you don't keep reminding them, they forget,'' she said.

Wolfson said she didn't think schools act as a magnet for bad drivers, just that it seems worse near schools since people are more aware of traffic hazards when children are in the equation. ``Because we're so conscious, it shows up more around the schools,'' she said.

DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS

Santa Clarita's most collision-prone intersections in 1996:

Bouquet Canyon Road and Valencia Boulevard/Soledad Canyon Road - 15 collisions.

Creekside Road and Valencia Boulevard - 11 collisions.

Soledad Canyon Road and Whites Canyon Road - 10 collisions.

Soledad Canyon Road and Camp Plenty Road - 10 collisions.

Lyons Avenue and Orchard Village Road - 10 collisions.

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Box: DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS (See text)