People Keep Getting Killed Along California's Pacific Coast Highway

The deaths of four Pepperdine University students killed as they walked along California's Pacific Coast Highway in October were tragic, but not exactly rare: A new memorial along the coastal Route 1 features 58 white tires—one for each person killed since 2010 on the 21-mile stretch of the highway that goes through Malibu. "It's Main Street plus parking for a beach," Los Angeles County Sheriff Capt. Jennifer Seetoo explains to CNN. "It's a walkway and you literally have people going 100 miles an hour." The first tire is for Emily Shane, the 13-year-old killed as she waited along the road for her dad to pick her up from a slumber party. "It's just a matter of time" before the next death, her dad, film producer Michael Shane, says. "We can't move fast enough to do what needs to be done."

Shane, who recently made a documentary about the dangerous stretch of road, saw the car that killed his daughter as it sped past him on the highway. After her death, he assumed things would change; perhaps the stretch of highway that goes through Malibu would see a median and sidewalks added, turning it into a boulevard that cars travel more slowly. Instead, 57 more people have died in the 13 years since. Safety improvements are being planned, including increased fines for speed and traffic violations in the designated speed safety corridor and additional California Highway Patrol officers assigned to the area, KTLA reports. Officials announced this week a number of changes including printing the 45mph (or, in some places, 50mph) limit on the roadway itself and adding "speed feedback" signs that show how fast drivers are actually going. (More Pacific Coast Highway stories.)