Why Rent the Video of ‘Traffic’ When the Street Performances Are Free?

City Talk, the newsletter of Paramount, reports that a motorist was stopped for speeding in that city and asked, “How could I be speeding? I’m almost out of gas.”

A different problem: Then there was the motorist who was randomly singled out at a Paramount traffic checkpoint and began to wheeze as an officer approached her. She was having an asthma attack, she said. Paramedics were summoned, who told officers that the woman was not displaying “any genuine symptoms of asthma.”

But symptoms of nervousness--now that was a different story. It turned out she had neither a driver’s license nor car insurance.

You think your back seat drivers are noisy. . . . Alex Morrison of L.A. saw an ad for a car that has evidently been the scene of a lot of squawking (see accompanying).

Stupid Human Tricks: “While following a maroon Volvo on PCH in our fire engine, we noticed the driver intently reading the sports page folded open on his lap,” writes Paul Williams of the L.A. County Fire Department. “His left foot was resting on top of the dash. We blasted the air horn while passing and his reaction was a big grin and a wave.”

From Stupid Driver Tricks to mortuaries: Lyn Fisher of Manhattan Beach spotted a mortuary that evidently has a dairy product sideline (see accompanying).

Notice also that the friendly mortuary requires “no membership.”

The silence is deathly here too: Dave Middleton of Rancho Mirage, meanwhile, came upon a house in the Riverside area where the neighbors figure to be quiet (see accompanying).

The antithesis of road rage: “I saw a license plate on the 134 Freeway,” says Jeff Ballam, “and my only hope is that the driver is never behind me when I have to come to a sudden stop. It said: ‘IDAYDRM.’ ”

Which reminds me that one of my colleagues spoke of a religious order in Seal Beach that taught him how to meditate while commuting to work.

Meditating at 65 mph on the Santa Ana Freeway?

“With my eyes open,” he added.

Guess his penny tray wouldn’t hold them: When Century City lawyer Ernest J. Franceschi Jr. was ordered to pay $999.98 in court-ordered sanctions to attorney Dale Alberstone, he had 20 moneybags dropped off at Alberstone’s office. The bags contained 100,000 pennies, the L.A. Daily Journal said. Alberstone’s bank agreed to cash in the coins. He sent Franceschi a letter of receipt, taping the overpayment to the note--two pennies.

miscelLAny: A freeway billboard on the Westside proclaims: “Welcome to L.A. Population: Way Too Much.”

Yes, it’s a tourist pitch from a rival town. But guess which one: San Luis Obispo? San Juan Capistrano? Park City, Utah?

No, it’s from the cozy little hamlet of San Diego, city of 1,223,400, the seventh most populous in the nation.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.