A Times poll of Southern California drivers...

A Times poll of Southern California drivers last year found that 38% had made indecent gestures toward other motorists, 11% had become embroiled in a dispute (1% physical) on the roadway in the previous 12 months, and 5% admitted carrying a gun in the car.

The Sacred Heart Auto League recommends a different approach.

“Drive with peace--use your driving time to show Christ’s love,” says one of a series of TV ads that the group has begun running on Southern California stations.

Viewers who phone an 800 number receive information about the league--a Catholic organization run by the Sacred Heart Priests order of Walls, Miss.--as well as a statuette of Jesus to place on the dashboard.

Spokesman Mark Ratay said that one reason that L.A. was chosen for a test run of the TV ads was that “in Southern California, you have a lot of bad traffic situations. If you are cut off, you can either shake your fist and swear at the person or take the Christian attitude and make up for the rudeness of others by not being rude back.”

In other words, remember that Someone Up There is watching--and we don’t meant the CHP officer on the freeway overpass.

Walter Fluent of Glendale figures that “there’s never a line of people waiting to brush their teeth” at the house featured in the accompanying ad, which he found in a local newspaper.

Only the other day, we identified the source of the New Freeway Chickens on the Hollywood Freeway--a nearby resident whose birds fled when he acquired a pit bull.

Now comes a shocking disclosure about the Old Freeway Chickens, believed to be the purported survivors of a 1969 poultry truck crash.

“My wife and her twin sister kept the secret to themselves for years,” said Jeff Stein of Granada Hills. “Then, one day, someone mentioned the poultry truck story at her sister’s house and my wife said, ‘That’s not how the chickens got there. We put them there.”’

Janet Stein related how in 1968, when the girls were 12, they learned that a nearby school that raised animals was closing and that its resident chickens would be killed.

The twins scooped them up and succeeded in hiding them at home until a rooster awoke everyone at 5 a.m. The chickens couldn’t stay.

“So there were these two little girls,” said Jeff Stein, “hiking through a field to an open area near the freeway.”

How many chickens did they dump?

“How many can you fit into two pillowcases?” he asked.

Somebody out there loves L.A. We may take our knocks from Seattle, San Francisco and, well, you know the list. But not from Kecskemet, Hungary.

Barnabas Paroczai , a 17-year-old Kecskemet student, wrote to Air L.A., a local commuter airline, for “pictures and photos and all kind of colour print of L.A.”

In slightly uncertain English, he explained that he was “a fan for the U.S.A.” and that “I like, I very-very like Los Angeles . . . I want to know all about that beautiful town.”

This week’s Dueling Sign Winner (see photo), on Lankershim Boulevard near the Hollywood Freeway, seems to indicate that all roads lead south.

Grandchildren were popping up all over the place for Joe and Loretta Ross the other day. Four hours after their daughter, Victoria Schloss, had triplets in Van Nuys, their son’s wife, Debbie Ross, gave birth to a boy in Santa Monica. It was also Debbie’s birthday. “We’ll have to rent a hall for the birthdays next year,” said Grandpa.

miscelLAny:

Individual boosters--donating $250,000 each--have “endowed for life” 29 positions on USC’s football team, including punter, place-kicker and one special teams player. The gifts cover scholarship, room and board costs for whoever occupies a designated position. Several bench-warmer slots are still up for grabs.