L.A. May Be Fine to Drive Through, but He Wouldn’t Want to Live Here

A few years ago, traffic expert David Rizzo wrote “Dr. Roadmap’s L.A. Freeway Game!” a board game designed to help drivers learn how to get to places quicker in the City of Angels. Now he’s running for Congress. In the L.A. area?

Heck, no. In the 44th District, which covers parts of Orange and Riverside counties. Rizzo calls Fullerton home. Apparently he doesn’t like to play the L.A. freeway game himself.

Speaking of traffic gurus: Writer Don Barrett’s laradio. com Web site said that Jorge Jarrin, KABC’s morning traffic conductor, was unable to broadcast one report recently due to a mishap he suffered while rushing to work.

Don’t blame it on the traffic, though.

“I was getting into my car and stumbled,” Jarrin said. “I gashed my eyelid just above my left eye on the edge of my eyebrow. There was a half-inch gash like a boxer cut and it started bleeding like crazy.”

Let us count the joys of being a driver ... : There’s the high price of buying a car, as Steve Goodell pointed out (see accompanying).

And the repairs: It’s one “oy” after another, Jeff Pastor noticed (see photo).

There’s the pain of deciphering parking signs: Exhibit A is from Joseph Feinstein (see photo).

And, of course, the problem of temperamental drivers: But the music item Bill Fawcett spotted was really not for practitioners of road rage (see accompanying).

Dueling boycotts: A Hawaii resident was angered by a letter from a Pacific Palisades resident to a Kauai newspaper “telling us that he was canceling his family’s vacation to Kauai because he feared for his children’s safety in our waters because of the recent shark attack to the young surfer.” The Hawaii resident retaliated by telling the Palisadian-Post, “I am canceling my family’s vacation to California. The danger to our children is just too great.” Just when tourism was starting to bounce back here.

miscelLAny: My 10-year-old son disclosed that he began to doubt the existence of Santa the year his wish for a video game went unfulfilled. Santa, he reasoned, wouldn’t have turned him down. But, the boy said, his parents would.

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