In Blake Hertel’s mind, there’s an easy solution to keep cars from flying off the road and crashing into his parking lot. Just add a guardrail. It’s been frustrating for him to watch video after video of vehicles going down the embankment.
“That would have prevented every single one of the accidents we’ve observed,” Hertel said.
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WATCH HEREHertel runs the Westphal Company, which manages the office and retail building complex at the corner of Fuerte Drive and Grossmont Boulevard in La Mesa, right off Interstate 8. It’s also home to Brigantine Seafood & Oyster Bar.
When cars go off-road, they drop about 25 feet down into the restaurant’s parking lot. NBC 7 Investigates found it’s happened at least seven times since 2021.
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The most recent crash happened just last month, which marked the second crash in less than two weeks. Hertel’s surveillance video shows a car flipping over on its way down the embankment, slamming into a parked car with somebody inside.
“That’s my worst fear, is that I get a call one night and they say somebody got hit out in the parking lot,” Hertel told us.
Investigations
Gallery: Embankment crashes caught on camera
Hertel first expressed those fears to San Diego County Public Works in August of 2021. He reached out again five months later after another vehicle careened down the embankment.
“This is a real problem,” said Hertel. “This isn’t just an eerie once in a while, this is starting to happen multiple times a year. And that’s when I decided to do something about it.”
A senior county engineer replied with encouraging news. The intersection met the criteria for a guardrail, a process the engineer warned would take at least two years.
In the meantime, the county moved the “stop ahead” sign on Grossmont Boulevard closer to the intersection and added a “double-headed arrow” sign to try to guide cars through the intersection.
Satisfied, Hertel stopped reaching out. That is, until earlier this year, when more cars went off the roadway. He emailed the county in January and February, noting it had now been more than three years since the county said it added the plan to build a new guardrail to its project list, but no one at the county got back to him.
“I got left behind,” said Hertel. “Not a lot of response. And not a lot of follow-up.”
“How many more of these are we going to have before something worse happens?” Hertel said.
Last month, Hertel told the county he planned to tip the media. Within hours, surveillance cameras captured county workers installing white posts near the intersection.
“The same day that I said I’m going to go to the media, they put out white, reflective pylons,” said Hertel. “Which you can go out there and see now. Which took them half a day’s worth of work. So that would have been nice to have them installed four years ago.”
Marisa Barrie is San Diego County’s new Director of Public Works, taking the job about three months ago.
“We did push to get that out there quickly as a response, not that we were trying to avoid the media, but we were trying to acknowledge that he was feeling frustrated and wanted to get that taken care of as quickly as possible,” Barrie said. “We actually, I believe, have a pretty healthy program when it comes to taking care of our roads.”
But even with a robust budget, the county has a lot of ground to cover and can only tackle so many projects each fiscal year. Barrie said the county is responsible for managing 2,000 miles of roads.
She said the Grossmont and Fuerte guardrail request is one of 76 other unfunded guardrail projects. Four of those projects don’t have a guardrail at all, while the others have guardrails that need updates to meet current standards. They may also need repairs or additions.
And those guardrail projects compete with traffic signal installations, bike lane additions, sidewalks, new curbs, and road repairs for the same pot of money. Barrie said they prioritize projects in areas that have seen the highest number of injuries or deaths.
Later, in an email to NBC 7 Investigates, a county spokeswoman said accident reports are one of many factors the county considers. Others include the speed limit, number of lanes, and slope or curve of the road.
A blind spot in how the county learns about traffic crashes
While the section of Fuerte Drive that covers the four-way stop is maintained by the county, the parking lot below is within the city of La Mesa.
NBC 7 Investigates found dispatch records showing responses from the La Mesa Police Department and the Heartland Fire-Rescue Department for at least two crashes since 2021 tied to the intersection of Fuerte Drive. and Grossmont Boulevard.
But the only crash reports the county received came from Hertel, and not first responders, said Barrie.
“We had never received a police report of an accident at that intersection,” Barried told us.
The county said it only analyzes crash report data from the California Highway Patrol’s Crash Reporting System. By law, police agencies only have to submit crash data to CHP if the crash involves an injury or death.
NBC 7 Investigates looked through that database and only found one of the seven confirmed crashes in that database, the most recent one in May that involved an injury.
When the county didn’t hear from Hertel for several years, Barrie said they assumed the signs they added back in 2022 had fixed the problem, and therefore didn’t prioritize the project.
“We thought we had a good plan when we left him,” Barrie said. “Had some major accident occurred, and we received a report about a major accident, that would have drawn our attention back there.”
Even now, the county is still on the fence about whether to install a guardrail.
“We need to know what the root problem is. Is the problem having something to keep a car from going off the edge of the hill? Or is the problem that people aren’t alerted enough?” Barrie said.
Barrie told us a guardrail could create a new problem.
“Colliding with that guardrail, if we put a guardrail there, that might be more detrimental than rolling down that slope,” Barrie said.
In addition, the county says adding a guardrail isn’t cheap. A spokesperson said the design, geotechnical evaluation, retaining wall, guardrail, and right-of-way acquisition would cost more than $500,000.
So in the meantime, the county will install a white barricade along the embankment this fall at a cost of about $50,000. That new fence won’t prevent a car from driving over the edge, but they hope it will grab drivers’ eyes and draw attention to the unusual stop.
“I am eager to see this barricade installed and see how that affects driver behavior in that intersection,” Barrie said. “Because if we put this up for a lesser amount of money, and time goes by, and there’s no further concerns, then I wouldn’t want to go spend the money on a guardrail if it’s not necessary.”
NBC 7 Investigates reached out multiple times to the parent company of the Brigantine Seafood & Oyster Bar. We never heard back.
Report road issues and problems to the county
The county created a website where you can suggest road safety improvements or report potholes, damaged roadways, or broken signs.
It also has the Tell Us Now app to report other non-emergency issues.
