Skating Alone

NEWPORT BEACH —  Five o’clock on a summer evening. The beach was cooling down, the sky had that warm end-of-day glow. Naomi McComb, just home from the office, strapped on a pair of in-line skates and headed out the door for her customary half-hour sprint down the Newport Beach boardwalk.

Little did she know she was about to take the heat for every rude, careless, out-of-control and overly aggressive skater in town who had ever sideswiped a pedestrian or startled a wandering toddler. When McComb recently stood up against what she considered to be unfair law enforcement, she found herself standing alone.

On July 15, McComb got a ticket for speeding. A police officer tailing her on a bicycle said he clocked her at 17 mph on his speedometer--nine miles faster than the posted boardwalk speed limit.

Don’t snicker.

McComb wasn’t the first skater or cyclist to be ticketed on Southern California’s beachfront boardwalks--far from it.

Over the last decade, cities from San Diego to Hermosa Beach have set speed limits from 5 mph to 15 mph and handed out scores of citations, hoping to bring order and civility to a hazardous mix of walkers, joggers, skaters and cyclists.

Newport Beach officials alone have written 52 such tickets--which carry $50 fines--since 1991.

But unlike those before her, McComb, who maintains that she was skating in a safe and considerate manner, dug in her wheels and decided to fight. She has hired an attorney and is set to plead her case in court Tuesday.

“I exercise four to six days a week on this boardwalk. I’ve been doing it for years, and I never in my life thought that I was endangering anyone,” said McComb, a financial consultant. “I have no idea why they chose me. I’m almost 31, I don’t have tattoos and baggy pants. I’m a business professional.”

A local newspaper that published stories about the ticket and McComb’s response was filled with letters recounting hits and close calls and characterizing fast skaters as reckless “adrenaline addicts” on wheels.

City Councilman John Hedges said dozens of callers have complained about rude skaters and applauded the tough enforcement stance.

“She’s trying to strike this pose as the poor recreational skater being put upon by the mean old cops, but it is just not going to wash,” Hedges said. “Nobody’s buying it.”

Hedges also cautioned that belligerence by skaters could lead to an outright ban, a tactic the city considered in 1991. “It’s a matter of city liability, a matter of safety, and a matter of common courtesy,” he said.

Crashes involving skaters, cyclists and pedestrians have had serious consequences all along the Southern California coastline.

Newport Beach police tend to at least half a dozen injuries a year, Sgt. Mike McDermott said. Since 1980, the city has fought off 11 claims stemming from such accidents, and lost one at a cost of $230,000, said risk manager Lauren Farley.

At the Huntington Beach walkway, where the city installed a flashing light to slow traffic to 2.5 mph on congested days, collisions have resulted in skull fractures and broken bones, said Marine Safety Lt. Mike Beuerlien.

And at San Diego’s Mission Beach, a skater was paralyzed two years ago after tripping and crashing into a sea wall. Her speed was estimated at 30 mph--more than triple the posted limit, said Bob Murphy, grounds maintenance manager.

Southern California cities have experimented with a variety of speed limits and enforcement tactics. In Long Beach, where cyclists and skaters were banned on the boardwalk in 1992, the limit has been changed to 5 mph when pedestrians are present.

At Mission Beach, the maximum speed is 8 mph.

At Venice Beach, by far the biggest beach draw in the region, skaters and cyclists have a trail of their own, and it’s off limits to walkers. With up to 100,000 beach-goers showing up on a single weekend day, the boardwalk is virtually impassable anyway.

There is no speed limit on the Venice bike trail, said Senior Park Ranger Desiree Rideaux, adding that police there have more pressing matters.

“When I talk about public safety, I’m talking about gang problems, narcotics, open containers [of alcohol],” she said. “A speed limit? That sounds almost funny to me.”

Near the spot where McComb was cited, at 29th Street, a giant “8 mph” is painted on the concrete walkway in white letters, one in a series of warnings to skaters and cyclists to hold down their speed.

Over those letters roll wobbly beginners and smooth veterans, quick-turning dancers with headsets and serious exercisers, hands clasped behind their backs, going for sweat. Many appear to be moving faster than the limit.

As in most other cities with speed controls, enforcement is spotty, especially on weekdays when overall use is moderate. “We don’t assign guys to go and write skate-speeding tickets,” Sgt. McDermott said. “Our bicycle officers are out there anyway.”

At the time they came across McComb, the two patrolmen were watching for fast skaters. Just two weeks earlier, McDermott said, a resident had complained that his grandchildren, 3 and 7 years old, were left bruised and shaken after an in-line hit-and-run.

Enter McComb. She left her house a few blocks from the beach for the 20-minute exercise routine she practices at least four nights a week. “When it’s summertime and it’s sunny until 8, the last place I want to be is in the gym,” she said.

McComb was nearly done and headed home, skating against the wind, when the officers passed in the opposite direction on their bicycles. They shouted for her to slow down, but McComb said she wasn’t sure who had yelled. So she kept skating. The officers turned around and followed her, allegedly clocking the skater at 17 mph.

“They came behind and said ‘Stop.’ I looked around and thought, ‘Who’s playing a joke on me?’ I couldn’t believe they were serious,” said McComb, who added that she was aware of the speed limit but didn’t know how fast she was going.

She faulted the city for not giving skaters a way to gauge their speed. “I don’t know how fast 8 mph is,” she said. She also insisted she could not have been traveling at 17 mph because the wheels and bearings on her skates are old.

At a court appearance last month, McComb’s $50 ticket was reduced to $20, but she declined to plead guilty and pay the fine.

“It’s a matter of principle,” she said. “I am tired of people giving up when they’re not guilty.”

And she said that, if the city truly values safety, it should widen the boardwalk to separate cyclists and skaters from pedestrians. That’s a costly strategy, but one that seems to be far more effective than speed limits in reducing accidents, said Dave Cooper of the International In-Line Skating Assn., a trade organization that monitors such efforts.

In the absence of separate trails, Cooper said, it makes sense to post some limits. But all users should cooperate, he said.

“Walkers should walk on the far right and pay attention; in-line skaters and cyclists should control their speed,” he said from his Detroit office.

Cooper added that Newport Beach police have been “very reasonable.”

“Eight miles an hour is not an unreasonable speed limit when you have a mix of uses and high density,” he said. “This just sounds like a case of one rogue skater getting in trouble.”

Even on the boardwalk, skaters couldn’t work up much outrage over the ticket or the speed limit, although several said they were skating and cycling more cautiously since hearing of McComb’s ticket.

“I think it’s a case of over-regulation, but I can see why they want to keep the speed down,” said Mark Duxbury of Tustin, who skates at the boardwalk most weekends. “It depends on the circumstances. When it gets crowded here, you’ve got clumps of people, sometimes four across. They block the entire walkway, and that’s not safe. With all these people, it’s not a good roller-blading place, and it’s not a good biking place anyway.”

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Fast Facts

Cities with boardwalks and bike paths running along the coast have grappled with a sometimes dangerous mix of users--from strolling families to cyclists and skaters. Some areas, including Venice Beach and Manhattan Beach, have built separate paths for pedestrians, cyclists and skaters. Others have set speed limits, although enforcement varies. A sample of cities:

Hermosa Beach: 10 mph on the Strand and pier plaza.

Long Beach: Officially 15 mph on Alamitos Bay peninsula boardwalk and Bayshore Walk, but police say it is rarely, if ever, enforced.

Huntington Beach: 5 mph when pedestrians are present, 10 mph at other times. When a flashing light is on during congested times, speed limit is reduced to 2.5 mph.

Newport Beach: 8 mph at all times.

San Diego: 8 mph at all times on Mission Beach. Occasional enforcement efforts with radar guns.

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Speed Comparisons

Walking: 2-4 mph

Jogging: 5-7 mph

Running: 8-10 mph

Skateboarding: 2-4 mph

Bicycling: 5-7 mph

In-line skating: 8-10 mph

Sources: A Snail’s Pace, Hot Skates, Orange Cycle, International In-line Skating Association

Researched by NANCY CLEELAND and BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times