Traffic trivia: Here are the facts
When you are stuck in traffic on Southern California freeways, you can fume, listen to music or talk on the cellphone if you think that is safe.
But attorney Tamar Toister has a different pastime for those dull moments when traffic creeps along and the minutes seem to stand still.
“I tend to note license plate numbers as something to do,” Toister said.
Being an observant attorney, she began to study the numerical patterns of the plate numbers.
“I have noticed something lately that I do not understand,” she added in a recent note to The Times. “The new car license plates jump from 5H to 5J. There is no 5I. Why?”
A study by the Texas Transportation Institute found that the average commuter in Southern California loses 93 hours each year in traffic jams, the worst in the nation. Toister’s question, prompted by hours of idle time, is an indication of just how slow traffic has become.
The answer? DMV spokesman Steven Haskins said the state skipped the letter “I” in the 5 series license plates.
“We do have a regulation that I, O and Q not be used in the first or third place of the sequence,” he said. “I suspect that is because of the fact that they could be mistaken.”
Presumably, the I looks like a 1 and the O and Q look like a zero.
One wonders whether the inmates at Folsom State Prison, where the plates are still manufactured, have noticed the sequence gap.
The convicts turned out 19.6 million plates for vehicles registered in California last year. Each sequence, which begins with a number, can produce 13,225,000 plates.
So there are a lot of gaps in plate numbers. But the biggest gap of all is the growing number of cars with no license plates at all. Haskins said every car is supposed to have two plates, but lately I’ve been seeing more and more people driving cars without plates.
It’s mainly a local police enforcement issue, and it seems to me another example of the decline of routine traffic enforcement as police resources diminish. More reliance is placed on such technology as red light cameras and more police time is mandated for non-traffic duties.
My second question this week comes from a reader who said he was ticketed recently after changing his mind about turning left at an intersection. He had pulled into a left turn pocket and was first in line, but then pulled over into the through traffic lane when the light turned green.
Because it is not illegal to cross a solid white line, he asked why he was ticketed.
California Highway Patrol explains that it is legal to change your mind about making a left hand turn and exit a turn pocket, but it must be done safely and before your vehicle enters the intersection.
The intersection is technically defined by the limit line, pedestrian crosswalk line or the imaginary box formed by the four corners of the intersection.
Because the reader’s car was first in line at the red light, undoubtedly it clipped the limit lines before getting out of the turn pocket, making a technical violation.
Such tickets are an unfortunate outgrowth of the gap between most drivers’ knowledge of traffic laws and the keen eyes of police.
Traffic schools and the state’s Driver Handbook seldom go into enough detail to keep motorists out of trouble. Though common sense can usually keep a person safe, it will not always keep the driver within the technical boundaries of the law.
Ralph Vartabedian can be reached at ralph.vartabedian@
latimes.com.
