Dear Street Smart:While reading your April 25...
Dear Street Smart:
While reading your April 25 column concerning unregistered vehicles, you mentioned that helping the Department of Motor Vehicles spot such vehicles would be appreciated, probably on a volunteer basis. Does such a program actually exist? Can such violators be reported?
Another suggestion: Why not set up a system, similar to 1-800-CUT-SMOG, where anyone can call to report an unregistered vehicle being driven, giving the date, time and location of the vehicle. If we are allowing citizens to judge whether automobiles are polluting the air, surely we can trust citizens to report unregistered vehicles.
Ronald Smirlock, West Hills
Dear Reader:
Your idea is such a good one that the Department of Motor Vehicles actually tried it a few years ago by setting up a toll-free number for motorists to report unregistered vehicles.
Problem was, nobody called.
DMV spokesman Bill Madison said the so-called “rat line” was disconnected more than two years ago because so few people were calling to rat on their fellow drivers.
However, Madison said tips can still be mailed to the DMV at the following formidable address: DMV Registration Compliance Unit, P.O. Box 942869, MS H231, Sacramento, CA 94269, Attn: 86A.
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Dear Street Smart:
How do I petition the city of Los Angeles to lower the speed limit on my street, Whitsett Avenue, or at least post additional speed limit signs? I live in Valley Village on Whitsett. Traffic has always moved fairly fast there as an alternate route to Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and there are few speed limit signs. However, since a pipeline construction project was started a few months ago, driving has become hazardous: Trucks and cones block the line of vision of cars traveling down this residential street at speeds over 45 m.p.h. Any suggestions?
Bryan Malone, North Hollywood
Dear Reader:
There are several options at your disposal, each more difficult than the next.
If you simply want more speed limit signs posted along your street, you can call the city’s Department of Transportation at (818) 989-8784 and engineers will decide whether more signs are necessary.
Or, you can call the same number and ask that the speed limit be reduced for the duration of the construction project. Engineers then will survey the construction zone and determine whether current speed limits are unsafe.
But, if you want the speed limit in your neighborhood lowered permanently, things start to get a little trickier. First, you have to call the Police Department or your local City Council office and persuade them to sign off on the idea.
They would then call the Department of Transportation and request a speed study, and engineers would determine the appropriate speed for the neighborhood. If the Police Department or the council office agrees with the assessment, the proposal would go before the Board of Transportation Commissioners.
If the commissioners approve the plan, it then goes before the full City Council--and there’s no guarantee it will support the plan either.
Take your pick. And good luck.
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Dear Street Smart:
Anything that makes for safe and efficient driving in our complicated Los Angeles traffic is, I figure, worth sharing. Enclosed is my handy-dandy device for remembering which side of the street you find odd- and even-ended addresses.
Any address ending in an even number will be on the south or east side of the street; any odd-numbered ending will be on the north or west side. Just one thing--I could never remember which was which.
Herewith is what I came up with: NOW I SEE.
North-Odd-West I South-Even-East.
I have not found any communities in the Greater Los Angeles area where the formula does not work so I pass it on to you for whatever it is worth. Don’t try using it in Minneapolis or Phoenix.
Ruth Smith, Van Nuys
