Airborne CHP Uses Pacing Method to Catch Speeders

Dear Street Smart:

I was recently cited by the California Highway Patrol for exceeding the speed limit on the freeway. I was told that they timed me by radar from an airplane.

I was under the impression that radar was not permitted to be used by the CHP. Could you tell me whether this is a correct impression? Thanks very much for your help.

Robert Burgess

South Laguna

Sounds like you either misunderstood or someone was pulling your leg.

While the California Highway Patrol sends airplanes aloft to nab speeding motorists and in certain instances deploys ground units armed with radar, it never uses radar from an airplane, according to Sam Haynes, a CHP spokesman in Sacramento.

Haynes said airborne patrol units use pacing techniques to figure out how fast motorists are going, lining up the aircraft with a car and checking the ground speed before alerting officers back on terra firma to issue a ticket.

The flying CHP units are a fixture up and down the Santa Ana Freeway in the Central Valley, but the aircraft are not used to spot speeders in Orange or Los Angeles counties, Haynes said.

Radar is another matter. Although the agency is prohibited from using radar on a general basis throughout the state, counties or cities can buy the equipment and then request that the CHP use it to catch speeders.

Currently, radar is being employed by the CHP in about 30 counties in California, mostly to enforce the speed limit on local city streets. In Orange County, officers pack radar guns only while patrolling the Ortega Highway and a dozen city streets in Tustin. Radar is not used on any freeways.

Dear Street Smart:

I was wondering about traffic on the coming into Orange County and on California 71 coming from Chino and that area. Could the 71 be put through to California 133 and then keep going down toward Laguna Beach, where the new freeway is planned to connect to California 73 in Newport Beach?

I also think that California 57 should be pulled through to Interstate 405. I would think that that would relieve traffic on the California 55 and also on the Interstate 5 and the 91.

Eddy Vanwetswinkle

Costa Mesa

The answer to your driving desires may be in a single word: tollways.

There are no plans to extend the Corona Expressway (71), which would entail pushing a road through rugged terrain in the Cleveland National Forest. But a special agency composed of representatives of various Orange County cities is planning a tollway that would start at the Riverside Freeway (91) near Gypsum Canyon Road and run 23 miles south to the Laguna Freeway (133), with a second leg branching off to the Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5) between Culver Drive and Jamboree Boulevard.

The tollway will be called the Eastern Transportation Corridor and will cost about $840 million. Construction is to begin in 1991.

The Orange Freeway (57) is also being considered for a tollway that would continue the freeway along the Santa Ana River to the San Diego Freeway (Interstate 405). The state Legislature has created a special commission to seek proposals for tollways, and the Orange Freeway extension is among the most likely candidates. Authorities estimate that the project would cost about $1.1 billion.

Dear Street Smart:

Where Irvine Avenue heads north and crosses the Corona del Mar Freeway, there is a single left-turn lane onto Bristol Street. Why isn’t the middle lane a left-turn lane too? Even having it as a lane from which motorists could choose to go straight or turn left would help reduce the long line of cars waiting to make the turn.

Having one lane for turning left onto Bristol and onto the freeways while there are two lanes for through traffic seems a very unbalanced way to handle the traffic volume. This configuration also invites some drivers to cut into the left lane dangerously at the last possible moment.

The improvement could be easily done with a painted arrow on the street, and it would not require having to wait for the current bridge-widening to be finished.

Margaret C. Palmer

Newport Beach

As you note, the bridge in that spot is being rebuilt. Once it is finished, there will be room for an additional left-turn lane onto Bristol Street, which leads to the Corona del Mar Freeway on-ramp.

For the meantime, though, the idea to use the middle lane for optional left turns is a worthy one. Unfortunately, county transportation planners say that would probably not work well at this intersection.

Steven Hogan, the transportation division manager for the Orange County Environmental Management Agency, said the problem with providing left-turn options from middle lanes is that it requires signalization that permits traffic to move in only one direction at a time on a street. As a result, cars would probably end up sitting a bit longer than they do now.