Hey, Caltrans, Here’s 5 Suggestions to Decongest Traffic

Albert Einstein once said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

That being the case, Albert probably would have loved the imaginative suggestions readers have offered to my request for solutions to the traffic congestion problems in Los Angeles.

Nonetheless, some of you may read these suggestions and think that some ideas contain more imagination than knowledge. But let’s not be too quick to judge. After all, back in the 1930s there were some who thought Einstein’s theory of relativity was, well, relatively far-fetched.

So, with apologies to Dave Letterman, here is the Street Smart Top Five List of Traffic Crush Solutions and their originators:

* No. 5--Telecommuting. Seriously. Companies should provide key employees with computer terminals and fax machines so that on a certain number of business days certain personnel can work at home. The manager who needs to see an employee to be certain the job is being done has hired the wrong person in the first place.

Carol Stevens, Tarzana

* No. 4--Close downtown to anyone who doesn’t have business in the city, county or federal offices based down there. There is no logical reason for huge business offices full of people to exist downtown when they could just as well be in Panorama City or Calabasas. By spreading out the locations of jobs, fewer people will have to drive to the same place at the same time.

Opher Banarie, Reseda

* No. 3--It ought to be a matter of proper etiquette that those vehicles that qualify as a car pool should drive the designated car-pool lanes on freeways, just as those cars eligible for handicapped parking should only utilize special spaces reserved for them. Often those accorded these special privileges still compete for space with the rest of us.

Godfrey Harris, Encino

* No. 2--Let’s suppose you want to go to 18031 Ventura Blvd. and you are traveling west on the Ventura Freeway from the San Diego Freeway interchange. You have no idea where that number is, what the cross street is. Wouldn’t it be helpful if the freeway signs had the street numbers included. Thus, the sign for Balboa Boulevard exit would say 16800, representing the nearest address on cross streets, or the Reseda Boulevard exit would say 18500.

Caltrans will probably say that it is too expensive.

Stephen J. Howard, Studio City

* No. 1--Try this idea (other cities have): In the morning rush hour, let traffic on Victory Boulevard run only east. In the evening it can be one-way to the west. New traffic lights, movable barricades, some paint, and the job’s done. Would business owners on Victory object? They’d be silly to do so since a plan like this would introduce their storefronts to thousands more than see them now.

Tim Huntley, West Hills

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Dear Readers:

If you have more suggestions, feel free to send them in. Hey, with the stop-in-your-tracks congestion we have now, your ideas can’t make it any worse.

Dear Street Smart:

Why is it taking so long for Caltrans and its contractor to complete the last one-eighth mile of the new fifth lane on the eastbound side of the Ventura Freeway at Topanga Canyon Boulevard?

Barry Greenfield, Los Angeles

Dear Reader:

Unfortunately, Barry, what you see is what you get.

The Ventura Freeway widening project, between the San Diego Freeway and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, stops just short of Topanga Canyon on the eastbound side. Originally, Caltrans had planned to run the new fifth lane all the way. However, engineers decided to stop short because, if the freeway were widened at that point, there would not be enough shoulder area for road equipment, such as those trucks with huge blinking arrows, when a lane must be closed for accidents or maintenance reasons.

My question is: Do we taxpayers get a refund for that eighth-mile lane that was never built? Hey, we still have the receipt!

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Dear Street Smart:

More often than not, I find myself following a car that is driving erratically, driving slower than it should be, driving faster than it should be, waiting a longer time to make a turn, etc., etc. It turns out that the driver is on a car phone. Is there a regulation that addresses the issue of not paying full attention to driving, to driving with one hand, and the like?

Kenneth R. Chane, Tarzana

Dear Reader:

In short, you’re asking if there are rules against driving like an airhead, right? Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the term “airhead” in the California Vehicle Code, so I called Alicia Ritter, a spokeswoman for the state office of traffic safety, for some direction on your query.

Ritter said a motorist can be cited for driving erratically, such as weaving in and out of lanes, and for driving faster than the speed limit or slower that the rest of traffic.

The office of traffic safety urges motorists to pull over if they have trouble driving and using the phone at the same time, she said. If this is you, Ritter suggests you get one of those newfangled, hands-free car phones that take almost no effort to use.

But she noted that there is a benefit to having all those drivers with car phones around: They can report drunk drivers, accidents, road hazards and other problems out on the city’s asphalt network.

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Dear Street Smart:

Four times in the past two years, my husband has been rear-ended by uninsured motorists. We had to report two incidents to the insurance company and the DMV because the damage rendered the car undriveable. The other two incidents exceeded $200 in damage, but we could live with that.

If we had reported all incidents to the DMV, would they now be threatening to suspend my husband’s driver’s license because he was involved (though not his fault) in an excessive number of accidents?

Jeanine Rampaul, Northridge

Dear Reader:

Fear not. Your husband’s run of back luck would probably not have hurt his driving record even if he had reported all four accidents. By the way, you are required to report an accident if either driver has been injured or a car has sustained $500 or more worth of damage.

Antonia Apel, manager of the DMV’s Driver’s Safety Review Unit, said the DMV does not penalize you for accidents unless it has been determined by police to be your fault. If it is your fault, you can be assessed points, which go on your record like bad grades on a report card.

One point is given for moving violations and those run-of-the-mill accidents like a rear-end accident. Two points are assessed for more serious violations like failing to stop at an accident or drunk or reckless driving.

If you get three points in a 12-month period, the DMV will most likely just issue you a warning to keep your nose clean, Apel said.

However, you lose your license if you have four or more points within 12 months, six or more points in 24 months, or eight or more points in 36 months, she said.

So, like golf, you want to try to keep your score as low as possible. Stay under par, and they won’t kick you off the course.

Mea Culpa: In discussing the origins of Cressida, the car model, in a recent column, I erroneously said that Cressida was a character in Homer’s “Iliad.” A couple of well-read readers have written to set me straight. Cressida, the unfaithful lover of a Trojan warrior, appeared--under that name--in the writings of Chaucer and Shakespeare but not Homer.

However, my research tells me that Cressida is based on a character in Homer’s “Iliad” named Briseis, whose name evolved in subsequent works to Griseida, Criseyde and then Cressida in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida.”

But literary pedigrees aside, I’m still stumped on why anyone would name a car after a Trojan woman with a wandering eye.