Toddlers Must Be in Safety Seat When Riding in Pickup

Dear Street Smart:

One of my friends recently received a ticket for not having his infant son properly restrained in the cab of his pickup truck. My friend and his wife were both wearing their seat belts. But the child was being held in his mother’s arms.

Yesterday, I was astonished to see my friend’s truck on the Ventura Freeway with his wife and child in the rear pickup bed. She was sitting with her back to the cab. The baby was in her lap.

My friend was alone inside the cab.

I have not had an opportunity to ask him why the family was traveling in this strange and unsafe manner. But I assume it was to avoid another ticket.

If the law allows this, it should be changed!

Frank J. Kelly, Topanga

Dear Reader:

The folks who make the traffic laws in Sacramento seem to agree with you.

Earlier this month, Gov. Pete Wilson signed a bill aimed at curbing that time-honored rural American tradition--riding in the back of a pickup truck.

But before we get into that, let’s look at what your friend did wrong. First of all, he should have remembered the “4-40 Rule.” State law says that children under 4 years old or who weigh less than 40 pounds must ride in an approved child safety seat.

When your friend’s wife held her son inside the cab, she probably thought she could protect the boy. But California Highway Patrol Officer Glenn Dominguez says that in a crash with a 30-m.p.h. impact, “there’s no way she’d be able to hold onto that child and prevent him from going into the windshield or the dash.”

But holding onto the boy in the truck’s bed won’t save the family from another ticket, Dominguez says, because the child-seat requirement still applies.

Here are rules for other pickup bed passengers:

For now, adults can legally ride in the back. So can youngsters who are beyond the child-seat stage, but under 13, if an adult is riding with them.

But remember that new law we mentioned?

Beginning Jan. 1, you can only ride in the back of an open pickup truck if it is equipped with seat belts that meet or exceed federal standards. The only exception will be when a pickup bed is carrying a crew to a work site.

Supporters of the new law say it’s long overdue, pointing to a rash of fatal accidents involving riders thrown out of pickup beds.

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Dear Street Smart:

My complaint is about closing the loop ramp used by drivers heading south on Osborne Street to get on the southbound Golden State Freeway in Arleta.

Because it is closed, some drivers have been making illegal U-turns in the middle of Osborne so they can use the on-ramp on the opposite side. I’ve been driving all the way to Arleta Avenue, then I turn left to reach the Hollywood Freeway. This causes a 10-minute delay.

A sign at the Osborne ramp said it would be open on Sept. 15. That didn’t happen, so they posted a new sign saying it would reopen Oct. 15.

It is already past Oct. 15. When will it reopen?

Rommel Maniquez, Pacoima

Dear Reader:

When it comes to road projects, you can’t always trust Caltrans to live by a rigid timetable. But here’s the latest word on the Osborne ramp from Caltrans spokesman Joe Shaw: It should be completed by the end of November.

The reconstruction of this ramp was part of a much larger $9-million project, widening the Golden State Freeway between Van Nuys Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway, which began in Sept. 1992. Incidentally, Shaw says the signs you saw regarding the reopening date were referring to another project--repaving the Golden State Freeway between Osborne and Roxford streets.

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Dear Street Smart:

After reading your last column about how inattentive people who leave their turn-signals blinking for miles on end drive your readers crazy, I want to point out that for many years now, motorcycles have had turn signals that turn off automatically.

They stop blinking after a specified time if the wheels continue to rotate. If you are sitting at a red light, they don’t turn off. If you’re rolling, the signal goes off after about 15 seconds.

There should be no trouble adapting this to a car.

Larry Pizzamiglio, Granada Hills

Dear Reader:

Sounds like a sensible idea. So we checked with a couple of car-makers to see if anything like this is available or in the works. But neither General Motors nor Ford Motor Co. now offer a self-canceling turn-signal.

Jack Dinan, a GM spokesman, points out that many cars do have a lane-change feature that allows you to move the signal stick slightly as you switch lanes, then let it flip off by itself.

But that won’t do much good when a distracted driver moves the stick into the full-on position, then doesn’t turn the wheel far enough to switch it off automatically. The signal just keeps blinking away.

Many years ago, Dinan says, GM sent the turn-signal clicking noise through its radio speakers to remind people it was on. But that didn’t help if your radio was off. And there were too many complaints from people who didn’t want to hear an annoying click in the middle of their favorite song, so that feature was discontinued.

Today, if a Cadillac is in your price range, you get a chime-alarm when you leave your signal on too long. And if you buy a special option package on a Pontiac or an Oldsmobile, you can get dashboard information--including turn signals--flashed on the windshield as a hologram, Dinan says.

That would make a lingering signal hard to ignore.

No such systems are available now from Ford, says company spokesman Bill Carroll. But Ford researchers are looking into the great turn-signal dilemma, he insists.

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Dear Street Smart:

Caltrans plans to shrink the width of some of its freeway lanes so it can add more lanes.

In view of this trend, it seems to me that motorcyclists who “split lanes” will be in more danger--not to mention those of us who drive automobiles.

Are there any plans to restrict this practice in places where the lanes are being narrowed?

Barry Cook, Newhall

Dear Reader:

Caltrans says that’s a CHP enforcement issue. But the CHP says it’s up to our friendly lawmakers in Sacramento.

“Right now, it is not against the law,” says Sam Haynes, a CHP spokesman in the state capital.

Lane-splitting refers to the practice of riding a motorcycle past a car that is traveling in the same lane.

The CHP recommends that it be done between the two lanes closest to the center divider. The practice is legal if it is done safely, although CHP officers can cite a motorcyclist who veers past cars in a reckless manner--often interpreted as moving more than 10 or 15 m.p.h faster than the speed of car traffic.

Haynes says state legislators have talked about lane-splitting but have never handed out any money for a study to find out if it is hazardous.

Many motorcyclists will tell you that it looks far scarier from inside your car--where you cannot see how much clearance room they are leaving--than it does from the vantage point of the rider. And they are even less enthusiastic than you are about becoming part of your front fender.

On the other hand, motorcycle safety instructors, motorcycle magazines and others have also been campaigning for all riders to learn the sizable array of tricks and skills needed to pull off this maneuver without getting hurt.

Will the skinnier freeway lanes proposed by Caltrans lead the CHP to push for a law that would outlaw lane-splitting?

“I don’t think it’s possible to make a call on that,” Haynes says, “until the lanes are narrowed and we see what the effect is.”