People and Events : Road warriors:

It will come as welcome news to his neighbors in the San Gabriel Valley community of Valinda that 4-year-old Robbie Laughton is not allowed to drive any more--at least in the foreseeable future. “I’ve grounded him,” reports his mother, Jo Ann Laughton.

Earlier this week, Robbie got up from his oatmeal, lifted his mother’s car keys from her purse on the couch, then went for a spin. California Highway Patrol Officer John Escobedo says the boy, who is only 3 feet, 4 inches tall, was not able to see over the dashboard.

Nevertheless, he turned on the ignition and put the car into reverse. It backed across Van Wig Avenue, up over a curb and into a neighbor’s yard, doing an estimated $3,000 worth of damage to the automobile parked in the driveway.

Robbie then shifted into drive and charged back across the street to smash into a couple of trees and come to a halt in his mother’s ivy.

“Thank goodness the neighbor’s car was there,” says Laughton, “or Robbie would have driven right into their house where a man was sleeping.”

The neighbors, she adds, were pretty understanding and even offered to forget the damage if she would let them adopt Robbie.

She declined.

“He’s very lively,” she says of her son. “He walks on his tippy toes and never takes naps. He moves fast.”

Some other unauthorized driver made off with a vehicle from the parking lot of a West Hollywood videotaping firm. It was no ordinary car, but an entire mobile studio worth an estimated $350,000.

Harry Potter, general manager of VTE Television, said the 36-foot-long converted bus was equipped with videotape cameras, monitors, sound equipment and everything else needed to record sports events and other goings-on at remote locations.

It just wasn’t in the lot at 8610 Sunset Boulevard on Friday morning like it was supposed to be. Thinking it absurd that anyone would have actually stolen it, Potter said, VTE officials “called around to different places it might be” before finally reporting the disappearance to the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station.

The thing won’t be hard to spot. It is silver with three shades of silver striping running the length of the vehicle.

You might also keep an eye out for former Raider star Lyle Alzado’s $125,000 leased candy-apple red Rolls-Royce Corniche, still missing after vanishing while he was jogging in Palos Verdes Estates on Oct. 20.

Three young men in another red car seem to have picked the wrong woman driver to harass, reportedly forcing her to drive for about a mile on the wrong side of Prairie Avenue in the Lennox area.

She was an off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.

The unidentified deputy was in civilian clothes and driving home in her own automobile after a stint at the Lennox Sheriff’s Station late Thursday night, she reported, when a Camaro pulled up on her passenger side and forced her to steer across the double line into oncoming traffic.

Fortunately, said Sheriff’s Information Bureau Deputy Roxanne Schuchman, there wasn’t much. Unable to escape by turning, speeding up or slowing down, the trapped deputy finally pulled her service revolver. The Camaro sped off.

Other vehicles to be seen on the public streets and highways: wheelchairs.

Getting under way from the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall on Friday was the third annual Race to Walk, a 30-hour relay to Santa Barbara and back with about a dozen able-bodied and disabled participants taking their turns.

The event is to raise money for spinal cord research.

The finish will be at Warner Park in Woodland Hills, presumably at about 3 p.m. Sunday.

City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who fired the starting gun to send two wheelchair racers and their police escorts off on the first leg, observed, “This is one heck of a challenge.”