Class a Short Detour From the Fast Lane : In traffic school, the car brings us together, however briefly. Here we meet people from other walks of life. Here we have something in common.

Kelly is 39 years old, but it had never happened before. It was, she said, her first time ever.

“You were a virgin?” Seth asked, astonished. “Was he gentle? . . . Was it a good experience?”

No, it wasn’t, Kelly said. He wasn’t gentle. He was a jerk.

Kelly, it seems, will never have pleasant memories about her first moving violation. She’d been driving ticket-free more than 20 years before a highway patrolman nailed her going 80 in her Hyundai Excel. She’d earned her ticket and yet felt violated herself.

We could relate. There were nine of us in this session of the More Amusing, Less Confusing Traffic School. We had gathered here in a Canoga Park hotel conference room to pay our debt to society and hold down our debts to our auto insurers.

Nobody wants to go to traffic school, but it can have its virtues. In this vast, impersonal metropolis, the automobile is often blamed for Los Angeles’ lack of community. Instead of sharing public transit, we get in our cars, lock the doors and shut out the outside world.

Yet in traffic school, the car brings us together, however briefly. Here we meet people from other walks of life. Here we have something in common. If it’s a bad class, it’s eight hours of clock-watching tedium. If it’s a good class, we form brief friendships, share laughs, tell stories, engage in spirited debate, learn a little traffic code. Then we get our traffic school diplomas and go our separate ways.

I was lucky. Not because the highway patrolman clocked me doing 75 on the Simi Valley Freeway, but because I stumbled into a good class.

Mari, a Japanese immigrant, greeted teacher Seth Margolies with a slight bow. Richard, a mortgage broker, wondered if anyone needed a loan. John, a record producer from England, told of working with the likes of Eric Clapton. Mark practiced corporate law, yet possessed a sense of humor. Danny, a muscular 23-year-old wearing a Tasmanian Devil T-shirt, boasted of having had sex while driving. Ah, youth.

Danny’s tale did not amuse the friendly, gray-haired Christian lady who showed us the illegal pepper spray on her key chain. Nor did she care for Seth’s racier jokes. It embarrasses me that, only a few days later, I can’t recall her name. Nor can I remember the name of the soft-spoken fellow who sat in the front row, next to Kelly, the mother of two. All I can recall is that he was in the Laundromat business and seemed well-versed on the traffic code.

Everyone had their moments, but Seth was the star, which is as it should be. He was cheerful and quick-witted as advertised, which is why we paid our 26 bucks. It’s not like we signed up for the “Cheap School,” after all.

Seth may be Jewish, but he wore a Christmas shirt for the occasion, complete with little Santa Claus button covers. If he shopped at Zachary All, you’d find him in the “portly” section. It would be easy imagining him at the Improv, doing fat jokes a la Louie Anderson. But Seth said he’s never done stand-up. He’s an actor who’s done stage work and had a recurring role as Eddie Barbini in “Totally Hidden Video,” a “Candid Camera” knockoff that didn’t take.

Funny thing is, instead of traffic school, Seth might now be in the foreign service. His academic specialty was Soviet affairs. He graduated cum laude from Vassar College; he also studied at Cambridge and the London School of Economics. Under “Special Skills” his resume counts “French, Russian, fluent Hebrew” alongside “Improv” and “Comedy Traffic School.”

Finally he had to choose between pursuing a career in diplomacy and a life in acting. If it pains him at all to be teaching traffic school, well, Seth Margolies is a fine actor.

He covered the curriculum, liberally sprinkling in the humor. He had us take a 92-question exam of basic traffic laws, then divided us into teams to test our knowledge. My team was called “28 in a 25” in honor of John. He swears Burbank police ticketed him for doing 3 m.p.h. over the speed limit. John, Mark and I started strong, but faded.

From there, we moved on to weightier issues such as safety restraints, drunk driving and ways to avoid carjackings. He asked about my note taking, wondering if I was really an undercover inspector from “the CTSI”--California Traffic Safety Institute.

The time passed. At one point a beeper went off. It was Seth’s--a call from his agent. Later, after a break, Seth explained that his agent wanted him at an audition the next day.

“If I get that movie,” he told us, “I can tell you one thing I won’t be doing.”

His students, I am certain, will be rooting for him. And it wouldn’t surprise me if someday Kelly, Mari, Danny, the Christian lady and the rest of us will be able to say that we knew Seth Margolies back when he was teaching traffic school.

Seth signed my certificate. The next day I turned it in to the West Valley traffic bureau office, making my deadline by a few hours.

Deputy clerk Isela Mejia said she hears plenty of complaints.

“Sometimes people sign up for a comedy traffic school and there’s no comedy,” Mejia said.

Then she told me I was free to go.

“Now go out there and get another ticket to keep us in business!” she added.

Everybody’s a comedian.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.