Ear-Breaking Stereos Also Break State Law

Dear Street Smart:

While waiting at any stoplight on any busy street in Orange County, you may have your eardrums blasted by the showoff next to you. This person, usually male, will have all the windows down and his auto loaded with tons of speakers and the volume as high as it will go.

It is not possible to hear any police, fire or ambulance sirens with this noise, nor can you hold a conversation with your passengers.

Isn’t there a county ordinance or state law on the limitation of decibels? How can this offense be eliminated?

Ann M. Snider

Laguna Hills

The California Vehicle Code prohibits any music or sound coming from a vehicle that can be heard more than 50 feet away.

When CHP officers come across a car in violation of the code, they write a ticket, CHP spokeswoman Sandra Houston said.

“It’s a pet peeve of mine,” Houston said. “I find it irritating.”

She suggests that drivers resist the temptation to take matters into their own hands.

“If I’m in my personal vehicle, I ignore it,” she said. “You don’t know how somebody else is going to react to your inquiry. You have to figure, for the most part, people who drive around like that have some sort of disregard for other people anyway.”

Besides, she added, “Life is too short to let some guy with a blaring stereo ruin your day.”

Dear Street Smart:

While driving north on the Santa Ana Freeway through Irvine, I observed an ambulance with flashing lights traveling in the carpool lane. It exited that lane near the Costa Mesa Freeway across the yellow lines and then exited the freeway.

What are motorists to do in this situation when the ambulance comes up behind them in the carpool lane? Exit illegally, or continue at their lawful speed?

Joan Stoddard

Mission Viejo

Exit the carpool lane as soon as it is safe to do so, says a new law enacted just this year. According to Sec. 21806 (2) of the California Vehicle Code, a person driving in a carpool lane when approached by an authorized emergency vehicle shall “exit that lane immediately upon determining that the exit can be accomplished with reasonable safety.”

The CHP’s Houston interprets that to mean when no one is barreling up behind you in the lane you will be entering.

“If you are going to go over and force someone to take some evasive action,” she said, “then that’s not safe.”

Dear Street Smart:

I’m curious about lane sharing with a motorcycle--i.e. what’s legal (versus safe) and what isn’t? Specifically, when driving in the carpool lane is it legal for a motorcycle to pass on the right if it doesn’t cross the yellow lines? What about the areas where there is a certain amount of space between the two double yellow lines that separate the carpool lane from the rest of the traffic?

Bruce Marin

Costa Mesa

It is legal for a motorcycle to pass on the right in a carpool lane simply because the California Vehicle Code does not outlaw it. In fact, a study done at USC some years ago indicated that it is actually safer for motorcycles to “split lanes”--pass other traffic between lanes on a freeway. “For a motorcyclist that’s the safest place to be,” said Harry Hurt, a professor of safety science at the university who conducted the study for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

While passing in a carpool lane, however, the motorcyclist must not cross the yellow lines, according to Houston. “Those lines are definitely off limits,” she said. “If he crosses those lines, he’s in violation.”

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.