Lights! Camera! Fumes!At onramps around L.A. County,...

Lights! Camera! Fumes!

At onramps around L.A. County, the state Bureau of Automotive Repair has been stationing an experimental Remote Sensing Device. It’s a gizmo that measures the exhaust of passing vehicles and photographs the license plates of those violating pollution standards.

A great idea for reducing smog--in theory. The problem is, the smog-cams, as they’re more commonly known, cause traffic jams because motorists are slowing down to look at the contraptions.

“The other day,” KNX traffic reporter Jim Thornton says, “there was one set up on the Pomona Freeway, and we had traffic idling about seven miles behind it. That doesn’t do much for fuel efficiency.”

But bureaucrats in Sacramento know how to deal with a problem like that.

“They sent us a fax,” Thornton says, “advising us that motorists should not slow down because it affects the accuracy of their readings.”

Adds Thornton: “You can tell ducks not to float, too.”

THE DISNEY CONCERT HALL TOPLESS GARAGE: That’s what the L.A. Downtown News calls the grand new underground garage on Bunker Hill. It was supposed to be topped by a concert hall (you know, the one with the Frank Gehry design), but that comparatively unimportant project has been delayed indefinitely by cost overruns and funding shortages. Hey, we got parking!

Still, there is that empty surface area. So, the Downtown News asked its readers to suggest alternate uses for the site. Proposals included:

* A new hockey rink for the Kings (Susan Matt).

* A par three golf facility or putting range (John McSheppard).

* A topless dancing arena, which would enable the adjacent Inter-Continental Hotel to offer special viewing suites to businessmen (Lim Szeto).

* A display of a giant Mickey Mouse balloon (Maratin Lee).

* A modified “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride called “Dante’s Inferno,” which would “use old shopping carts for the rides. Hire street people to push. . . . Tourists would go to this venue first. Afterward, they wouldn’t complain so much about Los Angeles” (D. Sutton).

ONE-STOP SHOPPING? Keith Bohne of Torrance figures if the folks on the top floor of one office building can’t help you, maybe the folks on the bottom floor can (see photo).

SOME GOOD NEWS: Enough negative stuff about smog, traffic, cost overruns and the Neptune Society. Edith Elbaum of Topanga found a reassuring ad placed by a certified public accountant. This CPA guarantees he is “conscious.”

MANILA ENVELOPE, INDEED: Kathy Peters of Rancho Cucamonga shared with us a letter she originally sent to her sister in La Porte, Ind. Peters had forgotten to include a ZIP code in the address, but that didn’t stop postal authorities. When it reached her sister, several weeks later, it was stamped:

MISSENT TO MANILA.

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Ron Washington of San Pedro rescued an African gray parrot after he saw it fly into the side of a car, then fall to the ground. Lucky was groggy for a few days but now sounds like a true Angeleno. The bird has taken to imitating the whirring of a machine in Washington’s house--an espresso machine.