Those Almost-U-Turns to Snag a Parking Spot Are Legal Moves

Dear Street Smart:

The main downtown street of San Clemente, Avenida del Mar, is marked with a continuous double center line and has diagonal parking on both sides of the street. It has now reached epidemic proportions where motorists traveling one side of the street will suddenly make a turn across the double line to get that “perfect” diagonal parking spot on the opposite side of the street.

When I complained about this to the local police a few years ago, they claim that the practice was marginally legal, because the courts have held that such a turn is not a complete U-turn, thus not a violation.

Can you verify whether such a sweeping turn in mid-block of a business district, to end up in a diagonal parking space facing in the other direction, is legal? If it is not legal, how can the Sheriff’s Department be made to enforce the law? I’ve nearly been run down by these inane turners on more than one occasion.

Wally Roberts

San Clemente

You heard right the first time you complained about this practice of turning mid-block. It is not considered a violation to swing into the opposite traffic lane to snag a parking space, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which enforces the law in San Clemente.

Dear Street Smart:

What happened to laws on noise pollution?

As I sat at a Laguna Beach cafe this Sunday, frequent motorcycles roared down Coast Highway, many goosing their engines mindlessly, shattering my nerves and peace. One cycle set off a car alarm that further contributed to the noise pollution.

Several motorcycles had constricted ends to their tail pipes, ensuring that they would be extra loud and attract the attention they seem to require. I have never seen a Laguna Beach policeman stop any of these vehicles and have never heard of the Laguna Beach police citing any motorcyclist for making excessive noise.

Are there no regulations on the books, or do the Laguna Beach police just fail to enforce them?

James C. Daly

Laguna Beach

Because Coast Highway is a state highway, it is under the jurisdiction of Caltrans, not the city of Laguna Beach. Law enforcement is handled by the California Highway Patrol.

Caltrans does have noise limit regulations for residential areas, but not for business areas, like the ribbon of Coast Highway that goes through Laguna Beach, said Rose Orem, a spokeswoman for Caltrans. It’s simply a given that business areas will be noisy, she said.

Bill Madison, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento, says there are noise limit laws in the California Vehicle Code, but enforcement is casual at best. Officer Greg Manual, of the CHP in Sacramento, says if an officer hears a vehicle making excessive noise on a freeway or state highway, that vehicle may be cited. But he added that because noise pollution is not a primary collision factor, the CHP does not focus much energy on it.

Dear Street Smart:

I frequently return home to Anaheim from South County late at night and have been highly irritated at Caltrans on more than one occasion. You see, when they close a connector ramp (i.e. to the Garden Grove Freeway and the Santa Ana Freeway), or the entire freeway, they always seem to place the orange signs advising of upcoming closures too close to the actual spot.

The result is that a driver passes up any alternative routes over side streets and can get stuck on the freeway, either in a jam or ushered miles up the wrong freeway.

With the multibillion-dollar freeway construction on the Santa Ana Freeway and other freeways through the next century, surely Caltrans can afford a few more orange signs alerting motorists of upcoming roadblocks or detours.

Christopher Perry

Anaheim

A series of signs up to 3,000 feet in advance of any closed freeway, ramp or connector is required, Orem said. The exact location of these advance warning signs may vary because they cannot be posted in an area that poses a traffic hazard.

Also, warning signs placed too far in advance of the closure lose their effectiveness. Drivers who don’t encounter the closure in a relatively short distance may ignore the signs, she said.

Caltrans recommends you consult the closure listings provided by local newspapers (such as Freeway Forecast in The Times on Sundays) and tune into a traffic report when starting a trip.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to Caroline Lemke, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.