A Driving Need to Avoid Ticket

Perhaps because they drive so much, Southern Californians have a knack for making creative excuses when they’re pulled over by traffic cops. Take the San Fernando Valley motorist who tried to get out of a ticket by explaining: “I have diarrhea and my muffler is giving me trouble.”

To his credit, the officer didn’t back off.

YOU BE THE JUDGE: The above gem can be found on the World Wide Web site of the LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division at:

https://www.cityofla.org/LAPD/traffic/vtd/excuse.htm

Here are some other lines that have floated out the driver’s window to officers:

* “I had to get home to feed my cats.”

* “Officer, do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

* “I’m late for a funeral.”

* “There was a really dangerous driver behind me and I was trying to get away from him.”

* “You liar, you know I stopped at the stop sign!”

* “Officer, there’s no way you could have seen me cut those people off.”

And then there’s the excuse peculiar to this region:

* “It’s an emergency. . . . I’m an actress and a whole production company is waiting for me.”

JUST DON’T EXPECT IT TO HEEL: Georgia Lee of San Gabriel came upon an ad in a weekly for a pooch who “keeps burglars away” even if it has gone to the Great Doghouse in the Sky (see accompanying). As for the second sale item, “teenage dresses,” Lee wonders if those are “good for keeping the teenage boys away.”

AT LEAST THE OWNER’S NO BRAGGART: Hype and overstatement are common among eateries in the Southland, so it was refreshing for Larry Kantor of Woodland Hills to find a restaurant that doesn’t claim to have a spot in the Michelin guide (see photo).

OR SPARKING AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY: A billboard for the United Way charity on the San Diego Freeway says: “How to love thy neighbor without ending up on ‘Jerry Springer.’ ”

URBAN FOLK TALES (COLLEGE DIVISION): When Michael Cavanaugh taught at Cal State Northridge 10 years ago, he overheard a student in the pub tell an interesting story. It seems the student went to a final with two blue books. In one, he wrote a letter to his grandmother. That blue book he purposely put in the pile of exams.

He walked out with the exam questions, went home and wrote the exam in the second blue book (“with benefit of notes and books, of course,” Cavanaugh noted). That exam he mailed to his grandmother.

Some days later, Grandma called and asked why he’d sent her an exam. “OMIGOd! I’m dead,” the student lied to her. “I finished my exam early and thought it would be nice to write you in the spare blue book. But I must have turned the letter in instead of the exam!’ ”

Grandma, charmed, called the prof to explain. The prof agreed to accept the blue book.

Concluded Cavanaugh: “Talk about walking over your own grandmother. . . . “

miscelLAny:

Belmont High, the L.A. school on 2nd Street, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this weekend. Its alumni include comic Mort Sahl, actors Jack Webb and Richard Crenna, Times columnist Jack Smith, TV correspondent Murray Fromson, L.A. school Supt. Sid Thompson and Milo Speriglio of Nick Harris Detectives.

On a personal note, I should mention another Belmont alumnus who played a formative role in my growth (at least the growth of my waistline)--Tommy Koulax, the founder of Tommy’s Hamburgers.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.