Traffic Class Is Sweet--and Fattening Too

Within arm’s reach sits a large silver platter filled with bonbons and truffles--dark chocolate, white chocolate, double chocolate--free for the taking.

Don’t see anything you like? Too bad, you will have to wait until the next ice cream break. After all, this is punishment.

Penance is a sweet and fattening process at the Traffic School for Chocoholics. At this school, $23 buys traffic offenders all the candy, ice cream and instruction they can consume in eight hours.

The school operates several nights a week and all day on weekends at Robin Rose, a candy and ice cream shop on Rose Avenue in Venice.

A Los Angeles joke? Maybe. But according to the woman for whom the shop is named, the school is also a serious business venture and, she emphasizes, a serious traffic school.

It all started a year ago when Rose was ticketed for running a traffic light. To clear her driving record, she attended traffic school, an option that has been available to most California drivers for about 20 years.

But according to her, the jokes and instruction left a bad taste.

“There were two reasons why I wanted to start my own school,” she said. “One is that I hate the way people drive in Los Angeles, and the other was my fury over the farcical way in which that traffic school was taught. It was just a bunch of games to drag out the time. I knew more about the Vehicle Code than the teacher did, and I felt I could do better.”

Rose did not have to look far for an instructor. Her husband, Roy, a former teacher, spent a month studying the California Vehicle Code cover to cover, passed the certification exam with high marks, he said, and the Roses were launched in a new business.

Roy Rose runs a no-nonsense class, admonishing his students, “We’re here to teach you some California law and also to be sure we don’t see you again, except as customers.”

The Roses offer a choice of Saturday and Sunday eight-hour classes, as well as Tuesday and Wednesday evening four-hour classes, for students who want their instruction in two sessions.

According to Roy, the most commonly asked question is: “Where can you make a U-turn?” Most asked-for flavor? Raspberry Chocolate Truffle.