Traffic for Dummies, Take Two

Stuck in rush-hour 405 Freeway traffic last week, I could have used a doctor -- someone with advanced degrees in mental health therapy.

If only I’d remembered Dr. Roadmap.

His latest book, “Survive the Drive!,” was sitting on my desk at the office. Fat lot of good it did me there as I was boiling in the afternoon heat, mired in the auto-emissions bog between Orange County and Long Beach and freshly aware of a massive backup because of a big-rig accident.

All I would have had to do was remember chapter 9 of the book, the one that tells you when to ditch the freeway for surface streets. The answer was right there on page 95. “If you encounter recurring congestion, stick with the freeway,” the doctor had written. If it’s a one-time thing like a traffic accident and is still in the early stages of clearing, then “jettison from the freeway.”

Because I dilly-dallied before bailing, I spent 90 minutes of driving time on what could have been a significantly shortened trip.

This week, I called the doctor and told him what had ailed me last week. I got him on his cellphone in his car. “I’m just below Sacramento,” he says. “I’m going to pull into a fast-food place. It ought to be another minute till I’m parked.”

He’d read my tale of woe last week, and lamented that I hadn’t enlisted his help.

What did I do wrong?

“The first rule you violated is not listening to traffic reports before starting out,” he says. “We start driving and listening to our favorite CDs and all of a sudden we see brake lights and then we turn on the radio to the traffic reports and panic.”

The doctor is clairvoyant. That is exactly what I did.

When he doesn’t answer to Dr. Roadmap, the doctor is David Rizzo of Fullerton, a foot doctor. He got interested in Southern California traffic because, as a physician who made house calls, he found himself increasingly perturbed with traffic.

His first book, “Freeway Alternates,” was published in 1990. In the ‘90s, he also had a couple of radio gigs in which he delivered traffic reports.

In the way some of us like to solve Sudoku, Rizzo, 55, likes to solve traffic.

“Did you see my first book?” he asks. I didn’t, but he tells me that it offered some 400 alternate routes for Southern California driving, mainly substitutes for taking the freeway.

“I made my name in alternate routes,” he says. “I still believe in them. If you have the time and you’re tossed between the freeway and a nice surface street, like Valley View Boulevard, or Wardlow Road, or Sepulveda Boulevard to the South Bay, you might as well take them.”

Why the passion to defeat traffic?

“I have no patience for traffic jams,” he says. “I’m not a Type A personality, either.... I’m more a Type B, engineer-type brain. To me, it’s a puzzle to figure. I can’t stand to idle or waste gas in traffic.”

Rizzo was born in Los Angeles and, like the 21st century counterpart of a pioneer-era backwoodsman, claims to know his territory like the back of his hand. He’s also an inveterate map reader, so much so that even when on vacation in a new city, he’s trying to figure ways to speed up his trips.

He self-published his new book, which, besides offering tips on saving time, serves up a cornucopia of road and driving information, such as on which highways you’ll find the most trucks (the 710 and 60 freeways) and how to safely use your cellphone while driving (for example, pause between each number you dial).

Because we all like to talk traffic, I ask Rizzo if he’s got any Orange County insider tips. Maybe some favorite alternate routes.

“Off the top of my head,” he says, “I like Red Hill for beating the 55. I still think it’s underutilized. And Santiago Canyon as an alternate to the 5 going through Irvine. And I believe in the toll roads. I think that’s money well spent.”

Hey, I could talk traffic with the doctor all day. Such as identifying streets that go through the most name changes as they wend from city to city.

Maybe another day.

I ask Doc if, given his knowledge, all his drives are smooth. Well....

The only time things go askew are those occasions when his wife is talking to him and he doesn’t want to appear to be inattentive by tuning in to a traffic report. “And then, bam, I’m stuck,” he says.

Every guy out there can appreciate the dilemma. And in perhaps his best tip of all, Rizzo says: “I’ve learned to do the husbandly thing and listen to her talk and not interrupt her.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.