Parents File Suit in Jogger Death

The parents of a popular Camarillo High School cross-country runner killed a year ago by a car while jogging on Santa Rosa Road have filed a lawsuit contending that the county’s failure to remedy dangerous road conditions contributed to their daughter’s death.

Paul and Dorothy Bonds filed the suit late last month in Ventura County Superior Court, accusing the county of negligence in the death of their 14-year-old daughter, Jennifer.

The high school freshman was struck by a car as she jogged last Dec. 11 with her father near their Camarillo-area home.

Outrage over the fatal accident touched off demands that county leaders look into long-standing safety concerns about Santa Rosa Road, a heavily traveled, two-lane thoroughfare that connects Camarillo with Thousand Oaks.

Although law enforcement officials have said the driver was not speeding and did not cite him, the Bondses named the motorist, Pedro Acosta Valenzuela of Oxnard, as a defendant in the suit, along with the county.

The lawsuit seeks more than $25 million in damages and $10,000 in funeral expenses. It alleges that Santa Rosa Road had been unsafe for years and that the county “knew or should have known of the dangerous character and conditions [of the road] ... and failed to warn or failed to correct the dangerous conditions.”

County lawyers did not return phone calls seeking comment, and Valenzuela could not be reached.

After the accident, Paul Bonds kept a vigil at the site where his daughter was killed, spending nearly every afternoon at a makeshift shrine that family and friends erected along the roadside.

The memorial, which began with a few flower displays and candles, in the ensuing weeks grew to include photographs, poems and newspaper clippings, all surrounding a small, white cross.

The site also served as a rallying point for a campaign by Bonds and others to improve safety along the rural road.

Area residents have long complained about speeders on the thoroughfare, where the posted speed limit is 55 mph.

That effort culminated last summer in a vote by the Board of Supervisors to pursue a number of road improvements, including installation of a traffic light at the intersection of Yucca Drive, near where the accident took place.

Area residents will vote next week on whether to tax themselves to pay one-third of the $200,000 expense of installing and maintaining the traffic signal.

Supervisors are scheduled to receive an update today on planned traffic improvements for the area.

“I don’t think there is one magic cure,” said Butch Britt, the county’s deputy director of public works. “But if it makes people feel safer or puts them more in tune with safety concerns in the area, then certainly [the improvement projects] will have some beneficial impacts.”