Eventually, Those Driving on Expired Tags Will Be ‘It’

Dear Street Smart:

I walk three miles every morning and see many cars with expired tags on them. Is there anyone I can notify to cite these scofflaws?

Victor Sciba

Garden Grove

You can call your local police department or the California Highway Patrol.

“We will take appropriate action if it’s in our jurisdiction,” said Jose Vasquez, aspokesman for the CHP. Just when, of course, depends on priorities.

“I’m sure an officer isn’t going to overlook an accident to go six, seven miles looking for a tag violation,” Vasquez said. “But the information will be passed to the officer so that, whenever he does find the time, he will drive by and make an enforcement contact.”

Don’t worry, though, if it doesn’t happen immediately.

“They will eventually get nailed when they get stopped for a violation or attempt to sell the vehicle,” said Evan Nossoff, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles. “And, rest assured that they will be paying beaucoup fines.”

An example: “We once figured out,” Nossoff said, “that the owner of a 1993 Honda whose tags had been expired for three years would pay about $2,400 in fees and penalties. And that’s an average-value car.”

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Dear Street Smart:

After enjoying my weekly reading of Street Smart recently, I returned to inside of the Metro section to digest an all-too-frequent tale of mayhem and tragedy, “One Dead, Two Injured After Head-On Collision in Irvine.”

The article detailed the events and victims of the most recent accident on the notorious Laguna Canyon Road. Through the years, I have read time and time again about the same violent collisions on this treacherous stretch of road.

I am sure that there is a very good reason why Caltrans has not installed concrete center dividers to prevent deadly head-on collisions and the reoccurring loss of life. I am greatly interested in learning those reasons. Hopefully, something can be done to limit the human suffering that this byway will otherwise inflict in the future.

Dick O’Neil

Costa Mesa

Something will be done, according to Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda.

The agency plans to widen the road from two to four lanes for about five miles from the San Diego Freeway to El Toro Road. The widening, which is still in the early discussion stages and has not yet been fully funded, should eliminate some of the illegal passing that often results in head-on collisions, Miranda said.

“Over the years we have identified and proposed a large number of projects, including various types of safety-related items such as center dividers,” Miranda said. “Unfortunately, none of them have been approved.”

The problem, he said, was that the various entities involved--Irvine and Laguna Beach, Orange County, Caltrans and the environmental community--could never agree on what should be done. The current widening plan, however, “has been approved by everyone who seemed to be in disagreement in the past.”

Although the plan does not include center dividers, he said, “We hope it will solve the problem.”

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 Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 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.