What Not to Do After Your Driver’s License Is Suspended

For your unclear-on-the-concept file, columnist Steve Propes of the Beachcomber newspaper submits the three traffic violators who appeared before a Long Beach judge and received suspensions of their driving privileges as well as “warnings from the court not to drive.” So what did they do? They walked out of the courthouse and drove away, only to be arrested by police officers who were monitoring the court.

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Unclear on the concept (part 2): Russell Stone of Westchester noticed a real traffic distraction on Venice Boulevard (see photo). Said Stone: “It reminded me of a sign I once saw hanging over the Ventura Freeway: ‘Ignore This Sign.’ ”

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Attention, shoppers: David Burns of Sunset Beach gets our Bargain Hunter of the Week award, saving an amount that would be the envy of a Lotto winner (see accompanying).

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Such a deal: In the non-bargain department, Karen Lawrence of San Diego spotted a gift offer from a magazine that didn’t add up (see accompanying). And no matter how exotic mangos are, Eric Gordon of West L.A. thought they were a bit pricey at one market (see photo).

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Into the UNKNOWN with personalized plates (cont.): “A few days ago, you printed a bit about people getting notices of unpaid parking tickets on vehicles with license plates NOTAG and NO PLATE,” wrote Richard Turner of Beverly Hills.

He recalled thinking, “It would be cute to have VOID as my license plate. It was cute for a few years, until I started getting the unpaid parking ticket notices. Apparently, ‘void’ tickets got keyed into computers as valid tickets, but with my plate. Although I got all the tickets dismissed, I ditched the plates.”

And Ralph August of Westchester says a friend encountered the same barrage of strangers’ parking tickets after he put an UNKNOWN plate on his car. The DMV took UNKNOWN away from him.

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Is there a moral here? As a Labor Day feature, the Long Beach Press-Telegram ran a survey of folks’ first jobs, and one reader wrote:

“My first job was as a busboy in a restaurant. I was fired for being incompetent. I then went to work for the federal government, where I had a successful career for 26 years.”

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miscelLAny: L.A. has the world’s longest drive-thru mural: a 236-foot stretch of the 405 Freeway between Manchester and Century boulevards on the city’s Westside.

The mural depicts people out of their vehicles -- competing in the L.A. Marathon.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800)LATimes, 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.