Freeway Angels to the Rescue : Transportation: Stalled autos and fender-benders will be less of a hindrance to traffic when two state departments combine efforts to get them off the busy Orange County roadways.

Steve Madrigal had nearly made it down from Hacienda Heights, right through the tangled Tuesday morning mess on the Santa Ana Freeway in Orange County.

Then it happened. Chug, chug-ga, chug-a-lug. His brown van rolled to a stop, one freeway exit from that plumbing job in El Toro.

Out of gas.

While his nephew trotted off to fetch fuel, Madrigal reclined in his seat, resigned to a wait.

But then help arrived. A bright-orange tow truck pulled up onto the gravel shoulder. The driver, Barry Curtis, hopped out and cheerfully inquired if Madrigal needed some gas. And keep the change, buddy, there’s no charge.

“What a deal!” Madrigal gasped as he watched Curtis pour the petrol from a big red can. “I was ready to at least give him some money for the gas. Sure is better than the Highway Patrol coming and giving me a ticket.”

Here come the Orange Angels, a new fleet of tow trucks with the mission of sweeping Orange County highways of stalled cars and other roadway casualties.

Best of all, it’s free. The $425,000 project is being financed by the state Department of Transportation, which contracted with two local towing services to provide trucks for the operation. Stranded motorists won’t have to pull out a dime for a tow to the nearest off-ramp--or some gas, or minor repair work, or just about anything to get them on their way or off the road.

The Orange Angels roared into service Tuesday for the first time, as a pair of the brightly painted, 7.3-liter diesel tow trucks with snappy logos on the side hit the pavement on a nine-mile stretch of Interstate 5 between Grand Avenue in Santa Ana and Lake Forest Drive in Laguna Hills.

On Feb. 1, another pair will be deployed along a four-mile segment of the Costa Mesa Freeway from MacArthur Boulevard to 17th Street.

That same day, the California Highway Patrol plans to launch its own effort to keep Orange County’s freeways from becoming more parking lot than roadway. Dubbed Operation CLEAR, which stands for Clearing Lanes Efficiently and Rapidly, the six-month trial program is an offshoot of a similar effort already under way in Los Angeles County.

Special patrols will work in addition to regular patrol officers on the Interstate 5 from Crown Valley Parkway to Jeffrey Road. Like the Orange Angels, their sole assignment will be to make sure the freeways are quickly cleared of stalled cars and minor accidents.

Those incidents are among the most insidious causes of congestion on freeways today, causing other motorists to gawk and rubberneck, further slowing traffic. Every minute a car sits stalled in a freeway lane typically creates four minutes of lingering congestion, transportation experts say.

Freeway construction exacerbates the problem, eliminating any sort of shoulder onto which drivers of overheated autos and other malfunctioning machines can pull. With road work under way to widen Interstate 5 and improve its intersection with the Costa Mesa Freeway, the Highway Patrol and Caltrans are eager to improve their ability to get stalled cars off the road in a hurry.

“This is a pretty significant event today,” Keith McKean, Caltrans district director, said during a press conference Tuesday at the agency’s Orange County headquarters in Santa Ana. “We’ve got a pretty narrow freeway out there. . . . This particular operation is really critical.”

After McKean and other officials were finished, the group descended to a parking lot out front, where one of the orange tow trucks was parked.

Angels abounded. Highway Patrol officials introduced Officer Angel Johnson of the Santa Ana division and Officer Jill Angel of the Los Angeles headquarters branch. As the video cameras from several local TV stations rolled, California Angels first baseman Jim Eppard christened the stubby tow truck by dousing it with Orange soda pop.

“If a motorist (vehicle) breaks down, the goal is to be there in less than 10 minutes,” said Jill Angel, who has worked closely with the efforts in Los Angeles. “How many times have any of us been stuck out there a half hour, an hour? This will change all that.”

It certainly has helped in Los Angeles County, she said. With special Highway Patrol officers, tow trucks and a surveillance helicopter, the program has been credited with raising average traffic speeds from about 20 m.p.h. during rush hour to more than 25 m.p.h. on targeted freeways, Angel said.

Orange County officials hope the Orange Angels and Operation CLEAR can do the same. And if Tuesday is any indication, the effort should win supporters easily.

After only an hour on the job, Orange Angel tow truck driver Barry Curtis had already helped two motorists change flat tires and escorted a man off the freeway who had parked his car on the shoulder and fallen asleep on the steering wheel.

Over the next couple of hours, he would roust another sleeper and give some gas to a stranded motorist. By late in the day, Curtis and another driver had made 21 courtesy tows.

Normally, such efforts would be forbidden by the Highway Patrol, which by policy prohibits the rigs from stalking freeways for customers.

But the Orange Angels are exempt. Under the program, they will patrol the freeway from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Each motorist is pulled to the nearest off-ramp or up to 1 1/2 miles for free. After that, motorists must find their own way to ship the vehicle to the repair shop.

“Our job is to unclog freeways as quickly as possible,” said Curtis, a tall, 29-year-old self-described “wanna-be” Highway Patrol officer. “With the old system, the CHP officer would have to put down his cup of coffee, go to an accident, then call a tow truck, which takes maybe another 30 minutes.”

Indeed, when Curtis spots a stalled car, it takes only a matter of minutes for him to have it hitched up and ready to go. His rig is outfitted with a tow bar that straps to a car’s wheels. Even the priciest Porsche or Mercedes can be towed without damage.

“The only cars I can’t tow say Countach and Testarossa on them,” Curtis boasts.

Lewis Goldfarb owned nothing so exotic as a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, just a Cadillac that didn’t want to run. The white-haired carpet salesman was fuming in the car on Interstate 5 when Curtis pulled up Tuesday morning. Goldfarb had already called for another tow truck, but agreed to accept a free pull from Curtis to a gas station off the freeway.

“I think this is wonderful,” Goldfarb said as he watched Curtis unstrap his car. “For the 90% of the public who don’t have (a towing company), it’s a godsend. You can’t beat it. And I mean that.”