Questions and answers about your commute : Getting All Your Trucks in a Row

Dear Traffic Talk:

Why can’t signs be put up for trucks to use only the right lane on the southbound (405) San Diego Freeway going over Sepulveda Pass, from the (101) Ventura Freeway southbound to Mulholland Drive?

This would keep trucks from the No. 2 lane and help speed up traffic during the morning rush hour.

Rudy Campos

Castaic

Dear Reader:

Traffic officials have long debated whether funneling large trucks into a single lane would improve freeway driving conditions. When the Olympics were hosted in Los Angeles in 1984, there were even discussions about banning trucks entirely during peak traffic hours.

Caltrans engineers have concluded that such a move won’t actually improve traffic during rush hour, for a simple reason: Truckers like sitting in traffic even less than other drivers and usually avoid freeway travel during peak commute times.

Dear Traffic Talk:

Even though my question is not related to Valley streets, I hope you can decipher this puzzle for me.

I often travel on California 152 connecting Interstate 5 and U.S. 101 in Northern California. Why do they require all drivers to turn on headlights during the daytime? I never see fog there and the road conditions are always good.

Phillip Lee

Calabasas

Dear Reader:

While headlights are obviously used at night for drivers to make their surroundings visible, they also serve to make a vehicle more noticeable--even in broad daylight.

For this reason, several tricky portions of California routes have signs asking drivers to turn on their lights. Such markers have appeared along a 15-mile stretch of the Antelope Valley Freeway and Pearblossom Highway in Los Angeles County, since 1990.

“The idea is the same reason some auto makers are now installing running lights,” said Caltrans spokesman Russ Snyder. “It’s just to improve the visibility.”

The stretch of road you mention is called Pacheco Pass and before its lanes were reconfigured by Caltrans over the past few years, it was considered extremely hazardous. One of the most notable Pacheco Pass accidents to occur recently involved Aileen Gallo, the wife of multimillionaire winemaker Julio Gallo.

The California Highway Patrol said she was driving her Lincoln eastbound along the 152 and drifted over the center line, colliding with an oncoming car and killing the driver. Gallo, then 77, tearfully pleaded no contest to a manslaughter charge and was sentenced to three years probation, 350 hours of community work and fined $2,400.

Dear Traffic Talk:

How do you report drivers who park in handicapped zones who don’t have the required “Handicapped” sticker?

Robert Ellyn

Calabasas

Dear Reader:

Call your local law enforcement office to report the problem. Although fines vary among jurisdictions, the minimum penalty for falsely using a handicapped placard is $1,000 or six months in jail.

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Traffic Talk appears Fridays in The Times Valley Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic in the Valley. Please write to Traffic Talk, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted. To record your comments, call (818) 772-3303. Send fax letters to (818) 772-3385.