The Pinnacle of Pile-Up Reporting

It takes a lot to lure Los Angeles traffic reporters onto the roads if there’s any chance of traffic. They avoid the jams by circling over them in choppers or sitting in studios delivering the details to rush-hour drivers.

Still, no one who counts in the traffic-talk biz skips the annual Golden Pylons, the Oscars for those who chronicle pile-ups, fender benders, SigAlerts and police chases.

More than 80 attended the awards luncheon at Maggiano’s Little Italy in the Grove. Some normally sure-voiced winners, who can reel off rapid-fire strings of 101s and 405s, were so thrilled to get the coveted award they blushed and got tongue-tied.

Pylon is the fancy word for a traffic cone, which, if spotted in a freeway lane, is a sure sign of fiasco. Traffic cones are tastefully etched on the Lucite awards, which look a little like icicles. The awards are given to kick off Rideshare Week, which begins Monday.

Southern California, with its sunny skies, is a breeze for weather reporters. But for traffic reporters, it’s the hardest of the hard -- with miles of car-jammed freeways and oddball accidents.

“We’re much more sensational than in other cities. We go for the drama,” said Scott Greene, a veteran reporter at KFWB-AM (980).

The transit authorities and commissions of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties give the Golden Pylons to reporters who frequently plug carpooling.

But you can only do so much public service, Greene said.

“It’s kind of like garlic. Use a little, but not too much,” he said. “You have to keep it lively.” There’s so much else to squeeze in, like the irony of the truck loaded with brakes that once tied up a freeway. The cause: brake failure.

In the Rideshare spirit, Lori Ryan, who talks traffic on KBIG-FM (104), made the trip from Santa Ana to the awards in the carpool lane with several colleagues. She’d just gotten off her 5-9 a.m. shift, and had to be back for her 3-7 p.m. shift.

Driving to the lunch, the KBIG crew spotted “an accident on the 10,” something Ryan often says, but rarely experiences. Naturally, they called it in -- just like the tipsters they hear from every day. The 45-year-old Ryan, thrilled to win one of the six awards Tuesday, started her career spinning records. No one, she added, grows up dreaming of a career in traffic reporting.

Except maybe Randy Keith, 24, of KNX-AM (1070), who was making up radio reports when he was 4, had his own low-watt radio station when he was 13, and by 14 was working at a Santa Clarita radio station. By 19, he was up in the air in a helicopter.

“I always liked to hear myself talk,” he said. “And I fell in love with traffic. It’s a lot different looking at traffic from above than sitting in it.”

The gala featured a quiz show, “Last Traffic Reporter Standing,” in which reporters had to guess such things as which city had the worst traffic. (People cheered when they heard the answer: Los Angeles).

The awards ceremony ended before 2 p.m. -- just in time, the emcee quipped, for the afternoon rush hour.