Up in Arms : Insults. Meter cheats. The old car-trouble scam. They’re all part of the daily routine for L.A.’s traffic control officers.

At about 7:45 on a Tuesday morning, Richard Garcia parks his white Plymouth Horizon at an 8 a.m.-to-4 p.m. meter on Hope Street and heads for work. He does not put a coin in the meter.

He doesn’t have to. He is a city traffic control officer.

Garcia clips his radio to the belt of his blue-gray uniform, adjusts his white hat, pulls on spotless white gloves and strides into the intersection of Hope and Temple streets.

It is rush hour and cars are stacking up on the off-ramp that funnels commuters from U.S. 101 south into downtown. Fumes from city-bound buses assault Garcia’s nostrils. Pedestrians, late to work, lower their heads and defy the flashing red signal.

For the next hour, Garcia will keep traffic moving smoothly, scanning the off-ramp to anticipate flow, moving buses along, keeping an eye on those pedestrians.

Heading back to his car, he assesses this morning’s crunch: “About average.” Nothing like when it rains. “People kind of forget how to drive when it rains.”

No irate motorists today. No close calls. In five years on the job, says Garcia, 26, he has not been injured. But once, a car “got the tip of my toe.” Being 6 feet tall is an advantage. “They can see me.”

But if a motorist simply ignores him, he says, “I’m not going to jump in front of him.”

It is 9 a.m. Unless there is a major traffic snarl, Garcia, a “downtown rover,” will spend the rest of his day hunting for expired parking meters and parked cars with expired license tags.

He pulls out his ticket book and places it on his dash. If today is typical, he will write 20 to 30 citations. “We don’t have a quota,” he says, “but they really push for productivity.”

Right now, it’s chalking time. Near an adult school at Sunset Boulevard and Figueroa Street, in a non-metered zone posted for one-hour parking, Garcia marks the left rear tire of each car. He’ll be back in about an hour to see who’s still there.

He and the motorists play “little games,” he explains. “They erase the chalk, they move forward a little. . . .” Sometimes, to foil overtime parkers, he will note the position of the valve stem on the tire and copy the last three digits on the plate.

He drives past meter after meter with red flags but doesn’t stop. His practiced eye has spotted the handicapped parking placards on the dashboards, which means they park free. Many are illegally obtained, he suspects, still, “I’m not a doctor. Maybe the guy has a heart condition. But if I see a real young guy with a sports car come running out. . . .”

Garcia, writing a $23 ticket for expired tags, describes meter manipulators he has known and bested. “One of the most popular things they do is stick the coin in the meter and turn the handle just slightly. They can be sitting there an hour and the meter hasn’t started.”

At 1st and Spring streets, Garcia spots an expired meter. An $18 offense.

Sometimes, Garcia says, “people put a bag over a good meter. Or they take a ticket off another car and put it on their own.” (They know their car will not be ticketed twice in one day for the same violation.)

“Once, I saw a guy park in a red zone, jump out, lift the hood real quick and run into the store.” The old car-trouble scam. When the car started, Garcia ticketed the driver.

Cruising along 5th near Los Angeles Street, Garcia points out a transient leaning on a meter. “People give him a couple of dollars to feed their meter all day. He’s there every day.”

Back at the adult school, he checks the tires he had chalked. Two violators.

Richard Garcia is one of 585 traffic officers, about half of whom are women; every weekday about 350 of them are on patrol. They are not police; they are employees of the city Department of Transportation.

During fiscal 1989-90, officers issued 3.9 million citations, generating a net revenue of $76.3 million; the city’s 39,063 parking meters gulped $19 million in coins.

Garcia is one of 131 Central Division officers supervised by Darryl Roberson, a veteran who spent 12 years in the field. He says: “If a traffic officer is really good (at directing traffic), you’ll never hear him or her blow the whistle,” except to get someone’s attention. It’s all how you use your hands.” During training, they learn to keep their arms at shoulder height, the fingers together.

For example, a savvy officer, seeing a light turn amber, focuses on a car two or three back in line and slowly lifts a hand to halt that lane of traffic. An abrupt hand could cause a rear-ender. (Yes, arms do ache after a long stint.)

The job has greater hazards. One night in Hollywood, a drunk driver struck an officer, breaking both his legs. Another motorist lost his brakes coming off a freeway and headed for an officer. Roberson recalls, “He jumped in the air and bounced off the windshield.” Injuries: minor. During a month’s training, officers deal with fear of four-wheelers.

If a motorist runs a light and causes an accident, the traffic officer will take the license number and radio a dispatcher for LAPD help.

Officers inspire little love, as most of their day is spent writing parking tickets. “You’re the bad guy all day long,” Roberson says. “It’s very, very stressful.”

Nailing meter cheats is what Roberson calls “a cat-and-mouse game.” Most of the time, he says, “we’re just a little more creative.” The motorist can win, he adds, “but I won’t tell you how.”

Officers are taught to deal with verbal abuse and physical threats. Roberson says, “It’s a can’t-win job.” If there are no parking spaces, drivers are unhappy; if parking laws are enforced, they’re unhappy. For this, an officer with four years’ experience gets paid about $30,000, but can add up to $10,000 annually working special events such as Dodger games.

After a lunch break, Richard Garcia is back in his car.

A man sitting behind the wheel of a gray Datsun Z with a vanity plate, “AZ4. . .”, is in a red zone on Grand Avenue near 1st Street. Garcia honks. No response. He honks again. No response. He picks up his ticket book. The Z scoots away. “That usually does it,” he says.

Sometimes, motorists accuse him of waiting in hiding for meters to run out. Once, fed up, he told a woman, “Yeah, I was up in that tree. When your meter expired, I jumped down.”

But normally he says nothing. Let them question his parentage, make their obscene gestures.

They ask how he can sleep nights. “I sleep fine,” Garcia says. “This is my job, that’s all it is. My kids (both under 3) are what keep me awake.”

At Hope and 1st streets, Garcia spots a white Rolls-Royce at an expired meter. “Watch him complain,” he says, “like it’s a million-dollar ticket.” But the owner does not come. Today, Garcia has been lucky. No confrontations.

“Usually, if they’re not complaining about their own tickets, they’re complaining about somebody else’s.” Once, in the garment district, he says, “Somebody poured a cup of hot water on me from the second floor.”

If you’re ticketed, pleading won’t work--once an officer has written down your plate number. Garcia has heard all the excuses. “The time just ran out.” “The meter’s fast.” “I was just getting change.”

Turning onto New High Street in Chinatown, Garcia spots a car in a red zone. As he approaches, the driver appears, climbs in and takes off, making a U-turn mid-block.

That’s nothing. Once, Garcia saw a passenger jump out of an illegally parked car and stand in front of the license plate to hide it.

Then there was the day he confronted a motorist illegally parked on Broadway, and with no plates. “First, he took off his shirt and stuck it under the wipers to hide the serial number. Then he grabbed my ticket book and threw it in the street, jumped in his car and left.”

It is almost 3:30, time to fill out his daily log and head back to Vignes Street headquarters. He has written 24 tickets.

At 7 a.m. tomorrow, he will report for roll call. Another day, another ticket book.

And, probably, another motorist to suggest: “Get a real job.”