From an Eye-in-the-Sky Guy, Some Tips on Getting Around

It wasn’t the bloodiest crash I’ve seen in 11 years of looking down on you. But that afternoon 15 months ago, when a truck carrying a construction crane punched through the center divider on the Hollywood Freeway, lives in my mind as the SigAlert that came closest to bringing traffic to a halt and a city to its knees.

This was a wreck that sprawled, blocking almost all north- and southbound lanes, and bottling up anything that moved in the Cahuenga Pass. Few cars moved for hours. Surface streets were gridlocked. Surrounding freeways were backed up. And some children weren’t picked up from school until late evening.

It started me thinking of ripple effects. Meetings didn’t happen. Business deals were missed. Money wasn’t changing hands. Individual delays built frustration that created anger that probably resulted in verbal or physical abuse farther down the freeway. Maybe even collateral accidents.

The messages to me are obvious. Traffic is getting heavier and crueler, and any future for easier commuter movement across Los Angeles is dimming by the day. Transitioning from the southbound 605 Freeway to the eastbound Interstate 10 has become a frightening, sweaty exercise in escape and evasion. Freeways are no longer stress-free ways to cross town, except during those few hours when the city and JetCopter 98 are asleep and lanes are open and running.

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But with a little bit of personal care, with a little more concern for all those in the same boat, which is all of us, we can at least try to keep ourselves out of harm’s way:

* Always, every day, leaving for work or home even when I tell you traffic looks good for this Wednesday, give yourself extra time to get anywhere. Being late, becoming desperate, turning angry--they feed off one another and morph into stupidity and you become part of a problem that will contaminate all drivers within range.

* Remember: If one bad deed deserves another, what does one thoughtful lane change create? So if someone does something dumb around your space, don’t retaliate. Back off, relax, let them go and live off your piety for the rest of the day.

* If a driver seems to be a true menace to others, use your cell phone for community good. Call the California Highway Patrol and turn the person in by make, model, color and license number of car. Overhead, overseeing, I constantly listen to scanner traffic and see offending drivers stopped as a result of commuter calls.

* “Spectator slowing” is the monster of my trade, and arguably the most annoying traffic to get stuck in. So the next time you see a crash ahead, when you start getting close, keep moving, eyes front. Don’t look. Be master of the situation, and enjoy a true personal triumph.

* Forget Tom Clancy for a few hours, and this evening sit down with a Thomas Bros. Guide, which should be issued at birth to all Angelenos. Trace how you go to work every day, look hard at the freeways you drive and all the wonderful surface streets you’ve been ignoring for years. Most run right alongside the freeways you sit on every day. Although this might seem far from breakthrough information, you’ll be amazed how few drivers will not or cannot take advantage of surface streets. Time and time again, I’ll be parked in the air over a major freeway pileup, and although I’ve been talking about the problem for hours, and reporting that traffic is backed up 10 miles, I will still see commuters getting on the freeway and adding to the mess.

(Here’s a short list to steer you clear: Washington or Adams boulevards instead of the Santa Monica Freeway. Broadway, Figueroa and Main run parallel to the Harbor Freeway downtown. Riverside Drive is just one block north of the Ventura Freeway through Studio City and Sherman Oaks, with Ventura Boulevard south of the freeway. Now you’re eligible to join the club of people I’ve met who tell me they never get on a freeway. The big payoff here is that you’re doing something about your situation, and at least moving somewhere and somewhat instead of sitting behind that roofing truck towing a boiler of smoking tar.)

* And develop Plans B through D for when Plan A comes unraveled because there has been a freeway bumper crunch.

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Some final thoughts:

Check television stations for traffic reports before you leave home; once you get going, listen to a radio station with airborne support and solid, detailed traffic reports.

Learn surface street alternates, even by enlarging and photocopying a page from the Thomas Guide, and keep it in the sun visor. I know that if God didn’t want us to have cell phones, he wouldn’t have invented the San Diego Freeway. But, please, please, only use them in an emergency and don’t try working on your cell phone. Get to work, then work.

Now buckle up, listen in, and forgive those whose fenders may trespass against us.

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Jeff Baugh is an airborne reporter for Shadow Traffic. He can be heard daily on KFWB-AM (980), which airs the “Noon Business Hour” in collaboration with The Times.