Questions and Answers About Your Commute : Businesses May Set Up Private Parking Area

Dear Traffic Talk:

I have been dealing for a long time with a copying firm in a local mall.

To date, there has been unrestricted parking until a dry cleaning firm moved into the mall.

The dry cleaners have reserved two parking spaces with a double sign warning that “illegal parking” may result in a “tow away.”

Upon inquiry, the new shop owner claimed the signs were authorized by the Police Department.

In addition to the warning, the following was noted: CVC 22658A.

Is the above legal?

Albert Goldstein

Woodland Hills

Dear Albert:

The shop owner has acted legally in establishing a private parking section and would also be acting within his or her rights by impounding unauthorized vehicles, according to authorities.

The mall is private property and property owners generally have the right to manage their grounds as they see fit, according to Don Cox, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Ordinarily, he said, law enforcement agencies don’t patrol private properties unless they are called there by the managers or owners to handle particular matters.

What most likely happened in this case is that the proper managers called city authorities to install the signs displaying the California Vehicle Code number with additional warnings threatening to tow away unauthorized vehicles, Cox said.

The actual vehicle code text states that after a property owner has posted the required warning signs indicating that the vehicle may be towed at the owner’s expense and giving the name of the local law enforcement agency, the owner is free to call upon the proper agency to remove any vehicle violating the instructions of the signs.

Dear Traffic Talk:

On the westbound Foothill Freeway in Sylmar from the Simi Valley Freeway junction to the Polk Street exit and the southbound Golden State Freeway between the San Diego Freeway and the Simi Valley Freeway, there are white signs with black lettering that read: “Trucks Use Right Lane.”

Is this a code or just a suggestion?

The signs are largely ignored by the truckers traveling these routes and I have never seen any enforcement of this sign.

Joe Soriano

Santa Clarita

Dear Joe:

Orange and black signs reading “Trucks Use Right Lane” are warning signs and precede black and white signs with the same message that are regulatory, according to Sgt. Ernie Garcia, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

A truck driver is breaking the law when he or she cruises through the San Fernando Valley in areas with the black and white signs but doesn’t drive in the right lane.

Garcia said the CHP is aware of the law and officers enforce it and all other regulations that are disobeyed in their presence.

The public tends to think that the law is not being enforced because they personally have not seen a trucker pulled over and an officer issuing a citation, Garcia said.

But in fact, he said, the CHP writes thousands of citations yearly in Los Angeles County--to truck drivers and their companies--for not driving in the right lane and numerous other violations.

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