Flat-Tire Claim Against Caltrans Unlikely to Go Far

Dear Street Smart:

With El Nino, freeway reconstruction and such, how does one file a claim against Caltrans for damage caused by road conditions? Last weekend, a large pothole was created on the transition road at the 57/91 interchange. I ran through it and blew out two tires and ruined two rims. A discussion with the tow truck driver indicated that at least nine other cars had the same situation.

Jim Tebbetts

Cypress

You can file a claim by calling Caltrans at 724-2483. The agency will send you a form to fill out. If Caltrans denies your claim, you can file a lawsuit in small-claims court.

Your chances of prevailing, however, are slim.

According to Sam Eagle, a Fountain Valley attorney specializing in traffic and personal injury cases, you would have to prove negligence on the part of Caltrans, either that the agency knew of the pothole and did not repair it in a timely manner or, it did not follow reasonable inspection schedules by which it should have known about the pothole.

A Caltrans spokeswoman said the agency inspects the freeways regularly and, when potholes are reported, repairs them as quickly as possible.

Eagle’s advice: “I would tell him to use his own insurance. The economic realities are that it’s not worth filing a case like this against the state.”

Dear Street Smart:

Can you please refresh my memory on the law of the carpool lane? Is a child in a car seat considered a passenger, which allows you to drive in the carpool lane? I see this much too often on the freeways. What is the age that the passenger has to be in order for the driver to travel in the carpool lane? Shouldn’t the passenger have to possess a driver’s license? I’m very curious.

Mike Higgins

Fountain Valley

The law makes no distinctions regarding the age of a passenger. Therefore, a child in a car seat does qualify you to use the carpool lane. You’re right, of course, that taking unlicensed passengers in the carpool lane does not reduce freeway traffic. The reason it is allowed, a Caltrans spokeswoman said, is for ease of enforcement.

“The CHP doesn’t have time to stop everybody to see if their passenger is a licensed driver,” Caltrans spokeswoman Rose Orem said.

Dear Street Smart:

I have a question regarding the theater complex being built at Crown Valley and the Santa Ana Freeway in Mission Viejo. Every time I drive by, this behemoth grows another story. It’s monstrous! Whatever happened to environmental impact reports? I can’t believe they did one!

My question is: How traffic is going to be controlled when it is completed. I don’t see any evidence of new roads leading into the complex. The traffic crunch at Crown Valley and the 5 south was alleviated when they widened Crown Valley offramp a few years ago. To move cars in and out of that theater complex will certainly impact the flow on and off the freeway again, as well as at the intersection of Crown Valley and Puerta Real.

Of course, the other question would be why do we need more theaters when this area is already inundated with them?

Carole Wapelhorst

Mission Viejo

Shirley Land, traffic engineer for Mission Viejo, assures us that an EIR was done on the Kaleidoscope theater complex and retail center. And, despite your reservations regarding the need for more theaters, she says, “I suppose they wouldn’t keep building them if people weren’t attending them.”

The impact on traffic is more complicated.

Certain measures have been taken to help alleviate congestion. In addition to the widening of the Crown Valley off ramp, the street itself has been widened from the offramp to the mall entrance at Puerta Real. Once the project is completed, Land said, there will be two left-turn lanes into it from a signal light at its gate. And a lane on Crown Valley available only to construction trucks, she said, will be reopened to other traffic once the mall is completed.

Even with these improvements, however, there’s no getting around the fact that traffic will increase. Projections call for the estimated 49,200 vehicles that pass through this corridor each day to increase to 80,000 by 2020.

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.