The Ultimate Driving Distraction: Fiddling Around on Freeway

After reading my complaints about cellphone-wielding drivers who hold up traffic, Jim Jeter of Aliso Viejo recalled this scene on the Hollywood Freeway: “The traffic was very slow, and we pulled alongside another vehicle in which the driver of a BMW was steering with his knees and playing the violin.”

Commented Jeter: “I guess I would rather have seen him on a cellphone.”

Freeway musicians (cont.): That was my first violin sighting. Over the years, I’ve also received reports of various motorists playing a guitar, a trumpet, a flute and a kazoo.

There are limitations, though, even for Southern California drivers.

I’ve yet to hear of anyone steering a car while playing a cello.

Dueling signs: Today I present what could be viewed as two sets of arguments: one in Ireland on the evils of drinking and one in Las Vegas on the evils of smoking (see photos).

Way out! In the OC, Kathleen Austin chanced upon some pavement directions that seem to be written in surfer lingo (see photo). And the store is in shore-less La Habra.

Which reminds me: Remember Jeff Spicoli, the spaced-out surfer played by Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”? Ever wonder what Spicoli would be doing as an adult?

I thought of him when I read a letter in Surfer magazine from a Santa Ana resident who said he had left his construction job to apply for work at a surf shop.

Alas, he added, there was “one problem: drug-screening test ... at a freakin’ surf shop! I’m not condoning the use of any drug, but how many surfers do you know that more than occasionally take a toke?” Wipeout.

Sniffing out one last item: “The Longest Yard” was a 1974 prison football comedy (three elements I believe that every movie should contain). A remake is on the way -- with updated dialogue.

In the new version, one player complains that his nose has just been broken. And a teammate assures him his schnoz looks great -- “like Michael Jackson’s.”

miscelLAny: Wednesday marks the 34th anniversary of the Sylmar quake.

The Daily Breeze recalled that when it struck that morning, Charlie Tuna of KHJ-AM (930) was playing “Born to Wander,” a hit by a group that was appropriately named for the event: Rare Earth.

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.