Babies Qualify as Car-Pool Passengers, but Pets Don’t

Dear Street Smart:

Help! Please answer the question I ask myself every day as I enter the freeway.

Car-pool lanes are reserved for vehicles carrying two or more people, right? Is it legal to be in the car-pool lane when it is just my 14-month-old daughter and myself?

Technically, she is a person. However, does the law for car-pool lanes say you must have two or more adults in the car or just two or more people?

Renae Fernandez, Glendale

Dear Reader:

Relax. You and your year-old daughter are not breaking the car-pool law. The rule is two or more people, with no age restrictions. “It can be a 1-day-old baby and herself,” says California Highway Patrol Sgt. Ernie Garcia.

Keep in mind, however, that you can’t avoid a car-pool lane ticket if your only passenger has fur or feathers growing from it. “It cannot be a household pet,” Garcia says. “Technically, pets are considered property, but infants are considered a person.”

(We’ll sleep better knowing that technically, babies are people, too.)

Even though you are driving lawfully, CHP officers say they hear some interesting excuses from solo drivers who are caught using car-pool lanes. One is the popular “Pets are people, too” argument, mentioned above.

Occasionally, a pregnant woman driving alone argues that because she has a passenger inside her, she is a legal car-pooler. A sympathetic judge may dismiss the ticket after hearing this, but CHP officers say such decisions do not apply statewide. CHP officers can legally ticket a pregnant woman who drives alone in a car-pool lane, Garcia says.

Then there are those funeral home employees who argue that the body in the back of their hearse is the car-pool passenger. It won’t wash, Garcia says. In the eyes of the law, only live commuting partners count.

One final note: Car-pool lanes throughout Southern California require two or more people per vehicle--with one exception. That’s the El Monte Transitway, a section of the San Bernardino Freeway that requires three or more people per vehicle.

And what happens if you get stopped on this transitway while carrying one child and one potbellied pig? We’d rather not know.

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Dear Street Smart:

I’m writing about a traffic problem that occurs outside the Van Nuys post office at Sherman Way and Haskell Avenue.

Drivers who leave the post office lot on Haskell, intending to go east on Sherman Way, sometimes find it difficult to get into the left-turn lane at the corner. That’s because this lane often fills up with cars that have just come off the San Diego Freeway exit, about a block north of the post office.

It would help if there were two left-turn lanes, rather than the single left-turn lane that is there now.

Sidney Cohen, Encino

Dear Reader:

You’re in luck. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation has put together a plan to improve left turns at this intersection.

Anyone who’s mailed a package at this very busy post office knows that getting out of the parking lot can be a challenge. As you pointed out, the freeway sends lots of cars into the intersection, and the parking lot exit, so close to the corner, leaves very little room to maneuver across the lanes.

To ease the congestion, the city will revamp the southbound lane immediately next to the existing left-turn lane, says Tom Jones, a senior city transportation engineer. This second lane will be “left-turn optional,” meaning you can turn left or go straight ahead. Northbound drivers will get a red light at this time to avoid collisions.

Although the city has limited funds for such improvements, Jones says the work will be done in six months to a year.

And keep this in mind: The Van Nuys post office processes mail for the entire San Fernando Valley, and its back rooms operate around the clock. Beginning in April, this work will move to a new processing center near Santa Clarita, says David Mazer, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman.

The Van Nuys center will still sell stamps and provide other public services. But those big trucks that carry mail in and out, along with hundreds of processing workers, will no longer add to the traffic jams here.

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Dear Street Smart:

Until a few months ago, the traffic signals at two minor intersections along Magnolia Boulevard, just north of Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, only turned red when they were tripped by cars waiting to get through the intersection. I’m referring to the lights at Ranchito and Sunnyslope avenues.

Now, these lights are set to turn red regularly, even if no car or pedestrian is waiting to cross. This impedes traffic. How can this situation be reversed?

John Kroll, Sherman Oaks

Dear Reader:

The situation will be reversed, but you’ll have to be patient.

The culprit at both intersections is the detector, a device buried in the street. When a car arrives at the corner, the detector senses it and orders up a green light. When no cars are waiting, the signal on the cross street remains green for a longer period.

Last summer, a street maintenance crew accidentally damaged a detector on Ranchito, says Brian Gallagher, a city transportation engineer. City workers then set the signal to offer a green light at regular intervals so drivers on Ranchito would not be trapped behind an endless red light.

More recently, city crews discovered that a detector was also broken on Sunnyslope. They set up a regular green-light sequence there, too.

These signals will again operate on a traffic-demand basis as soon as the detectors are fixed. Unfortunately, well over 100 detectors need repair throughout the city, and there’s not enough money to immediately fix them and the city’s other broken traffic devices.

The city sets priorities, and “fixing malfunctioning traffic signals is a higher priority than fixing broken detectors,” Gallagher says. The Ranchito detector should be repaired within a month or two, the Sunnyslope detector in about six months, he predicts.