Site of Officer Isn’t an Issue in Citation for Speeding

Dear Street Smart:

Recently my wife was traveling down Yorba Linda Boulevard in Yorba Linda and was cited for speeding.

The citing officer got her on radar; however, he obtained the radar reading while his motorcycle was parked on a public corner sidewalk with the emergency lights off.

Is it legal for police officers to cite traffic violators while parked on a public sidewalk with the emergency lights off?

James Brunette

Yorba Linda

While state law prohibits law enforcement officers from parking the way you describe, says Kent Milton, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, a local ordinance can supersede state law. And in Yorba Linda, traffic officers have been parking their motorcycles in wheelchair access ramps at busy intersections.

“There is no other safe place for the officers to park and conduct enforcement,” said Jeff Keyworth, a traffic supervisor for the Brea Police Department which covers Yorba Linda.

Commissioners at Orange County Municipal Court have upheld the practice on several occasions. But even if they hadn’t, according to Milton, your wife’s speeding ticket would still be intact. “The citation is valid,” he said. “It would not be in jeopardy” even had the officer parked illegally to give it.

Dear Street Smart:

What is the purpose of the three-person carpool lane on the 91 Express Lanes toll road? It only goes a short distance and serves no discernible purpose.

Larry Dolan

Huntington Beach

The quarter-mile-long carpool lane ensures that those who participate in carpools get 50% discounts on their fares. While cars carrying three or more people are allowed to flow freely with other traffic along most of the toll road’s 10 miles, said Joseph Brahm, operations manager for the California Private Transportation Co. which operates the road, they must merge into the special carpool lane at the road’s toll plaza. That is where overhead electronic sensors scan the transponders on their dashboards to charge them the special rate. Human monitors watch the passing cars and inform the CHP if one of them is carrying fewer than three people.

Dear Street Smart:

Why can’t we in the Southland use the carpool lanes as they do in Northern California? In the Bay Area, anyone can use the diamond lane in off hours. I’m not sure of the hours, but sometime after the morning rush hour the diamond lanes leading into the city [San Francisco] can be used by all and the same situation occurs after the evening rush hour for traffic going away from the city.

Paul A. Sax

Mission Viejo

The hours during which carpool lanes are restricted are set by the cities through which they pass, according to Jim Drago, a Caltrans spokesman. There is no obvious reason why virtually all the cities in the Bay Area would opt for restricted hours of operation-- between 5-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m. weekdays, depending on the city--while those in Southern California would decide to have 24-hour carpool lanes.

The reason might be the contrasting traffic patterns of the two regions. “The one big difference between the Bay Area and Los Angeles,” Drago said, “is that the commute in Southern California is more of a grid, as opposed to the Bay Area where it is more radial.”

In other words, he said, peak traffic periods are more distinct up north where the two main business destinations are downtown San Francisco and the Silicon Valley and where most commuters drive toward those areas in the morning and away from them at night. Southern California commuting time, on the other hand, is more complicated and prolonged, with motorists going to and from multiple business centers all over the region. Thus what San Franciscans think of as rush hour, Drago said, is more like rush day in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Or there could be a simpler reason. “Whichever way you start doing it you tend to stick with,” said Mike McNally, an associate professor of civil engineering and expert on travel behavior at UCI. By sticking with what they’re used to, he said, transportation planners at both ends of the state are “probably just trying to avoid confusion.”

Perhaps their own.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.