For Ticket Writers, It’s Not All That the Traffic Will Bear

Silent contempt is the least of their worries. It’s outright hostility and violence that Terri Spencer-Frakes and her fellow traffic officers worry about.

Spencer-Frakes has been cursed at, her car spat on. Some of her colleagues have been scratched, shoved and punched. Others have been stalked by motorists angry at receiving a routine parking ticket. In dire instances, a few have been shot at.

“It can get pretty rough out there,” says Spencer-Frakes. “I don’t know what people’s impressions of us are, but it’s not good.”

Such are the lives of the 484 officers employed by the city Department of Transportation who direct traffic when stoplights are down, who clear our roadways of hazards and, yes, who work around the clock to nail those of us who would disobey parking regulations.

Their jobs are thankless but crucial to a city strapped for money. In the last fiscal year, traffic officers issued 2,723,279 citations--one for every resident of driving age--netting $62 million for the city’s general fund.

“The public gets much more benefit than they know,” declares Fred Johns, a senior traffic supervisor in the department’s Hollywood division.

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Spencer-Frakes has worked out of the Hollywood division for four years, opting for a good, steady job after the uncertainties of running her own beauty-supply shop.

At 9:30 each morning, she and her co-workers assemble for the daily roll call, where supervisors alert officers to any special events that might affect parking: parades, concerts, funerals.

Then she climbs into her car and rolls out to her beat--a corridor along Hollywood Boulevard that is the busiest area in the division, the busiest in the entire city for the past three months.

With a practiced eye, she spots five expired meters within half an hour, jumping out of her car to make sure the meter is not broken, and then writing the ticket. Spencer-Frakes scribbles down the information quickly, partly to avoid an encounter with the car owner.

“You have to realize we’re taking money from people. To somebody running to get a gallon of milk, and their kid’s in the car hollering and screaming, and they pull up in a red zone, I’m all kind of bad names,” she says.

On this day, as she fills out a citation on Las Palmas Avenue, the owner of the car comes running up, full of protests and explanations of how he was gone for just a few minutes to deliver a chair to a nearby office building.

To no avail. He receives the $20 fine. “For five minutes, that’s crazy,” he mutters under his breath, leaving a trail of exhaust as he speeds away. And his reaction is mild compared to some.

Once, Spencer-Frakes was paired with an officer who was socked in the chest and had her ticket book snatched away by an irate driver. On another occasion, a burly man grew increasingly threatening until Spencer-Frakes summoned backup officers on her “rover”--the radio that all officers carry.

“We don’t have Mace or pepper (spray). We have nothing but our radios,” she says. “That’s our lifeline. Without it, it’d just be me and my car. . . .

“People think we’re out here just lollygagging, writing tickets. The book always looks good on the cover, but when you open it up and look inside, it’s not so nice.”

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The work can indeed leave no time for lollygagging.

On a good day, a traffic officer can write up to 100 tickets, depending on the beat.

The most common citation is for parking during posted street-cleaning hours, which will set you back $30. Interestingly, it costs less for parking on the sidewalk ($30) than it does in a no-stopping zone ($55).

The most expensive ticket is for illegally staking out a handicapped space: $330, please.

“No, we’re not on commission,” says Spencer-Frakes, rolling her eyes at a commonly asked question.

There also are no quotas, officials say, although there are expectations based on the number of tickets issued the year before--568,690, in the case of the Hollywood division.

But the traffic wardens object to being characterized as meter maids who quiver with anticipation at issuing a citation. Officials point out that traffic officers fulfill a wide variety of duties.

For example, says traffic supervisor Johns, it was his crew, not the police, that directed cars around Hollywood High School last week after a student was fatally shot one afternoon.

After the Jan. 17 earthquake, the officers were put on tactical alert, and were key to keeping traffic flowing at intersections where stoplights failed.

And because they are out patrolling all day and night, they are often the folks who first tip off authorities to abandoned or stolen cars, who stumble across ruptured water mains, who report chemical spills, who spot fires, who even witness purse snatchings.

“The officers are at the scene of a lot of things that involve public safety,” Johns says. “We don’t have ‘ticket writers.’ We have traffic officers.”