In Emergencies, It’s Best to Forget Family Ties and Call In Pros

Dear Street Smart:

The other day, my wife was driving with our son north in the San Diego Freeway carpool lane near University Drive in Irvine during the morning rush hour when her tire blew out. Unable to cross the busy traffic lanes to the right, she pulled over on the left (a very wide median). She called me via cellular phone to assist her in changing the tire. Since I was traveling alone, how do I legally get to the median area to help her without hiring a passenger?

By the way, I did eventually enter through the dashed carpool entrance area. But upon leaving, I crossed the yellow lines to get into the normal lanes, since I was risking a ticket either way by staying in the carpool lane without a passenger.

Hopefully, you can answer this perplexing question for me.

Todd Selbo

Laguna Hills

The short answer is don’t try it, says Steve Kohler, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

“She should have called her husband and told him she was having trouble, then called the Auto Club or some other agency that could have helped her,” Kohler said. “In fact, she could have used her cellular to call 911, and we’d have dispatched a tow truck to help her.”

The reason for relying on professionals rather than spouses?

“It’s a hazardous situation, and we don’t want additional people in the median,” Kohler said. “You have to remember that you have a large volume of traffic moving at a very high rate of speed. When you’re in the median, there’s nowhere for you to go if a car comes in your direction.”

Professionals such as CHP officers and tow truck operators, he said, are highly experienced in maneuvering in heavy traffic and, in the case of tow truck operators, drive large trucks equipped with flashing lights.

“People recognize in a lot of other cases that a professional is the best person to choose,” Kohler said. “I understand the husband’s concern and desire to assist his wife, but you don’t want to compound a tragedy.”

Dear Street Smart:

Before 65 mph became legal, traffic was barely tolerable on our freeways. Now, 75 to 85 mph is in. Where are the signs that remind people of the legal speed limit?

I get amused at arguments about gun control. Auto accidents and their subsequent carnage make car control far more important. One day I would hope to see the equivalent of transponders (those little windshield devices that automatically debit a driver’s account when using an automated toll road) on all vehicles. Transponders in modern airplanes provide air traffic controllers with the ability to monitor and separate airplanes to avoid collisions.

Auto traffic controllers in equivalent radar facilities could likewise pinpoint and identify erratic or speeding drivers. Required would be a mandatory transponder in each licensed vehicle. It would be easy to control the maniacs on our freeways.

Has there been any consideration of the utilization of such a system?

Alexander Alex

Irvine

As a matter of fact, serious consideration is being given to a highway system that would take your idea one step further, by not only automatically controlling the speed of a car, but by keeping it in its lane.

“Our idea is to give drivers a choice that would utilize some of the same technologies he’s talking about,” said Celeste Speier, a spokeswoman for the National Automated Highway System Consortium, a group working closely with the U.S. Department of Transportation on developing an automated highway system for the future.

Their concept: an automated freeway lane that would electronically guide sets of cars at preset speeds and distances.

“It will free the drivers up to do other things,” she said.

Last month, the group inaugurated a pilot project that will use a stretch of freeway near San Diego to demonstrate the idea next summer. A computerized system will use magnets to keep cars on track and traveling in line at high speeds with equal spacing. According to Speier, the consortium intends to have a more complete prototype ready within six years and a fully functioning system within 20.

“What we’re doing,” Speier said, “is taking his idea to the next step.”

Dear Street Smart:

I am concerned every time I go under the new access to the Corona del Mar Freeway from the Costa Mesa Freeway. I pass under it approximately at Bristol Street and Newport Boulevard. What is holding it up? The Costa Mesa Freeway section next to it has support in the middle, but not the new access. Why doesn’t it warrant the same support?

Lillian I. Johnson

Santa Ana Heights

It’s all in the design and material, according to Maureena Duran-Rojas, a spokeswoman for Caltrans. The span you’re talking about is shorter than its mate and has additional reinforced steel in its structure.

“It was designed not to need any support in the middle,” Duran-Rojas said.

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 David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.