As he waited in his cruiser near a 605 Freeway offramp in Santa Fe Springs, California Highway Patrol Officer Joe Zizi swore that the stretch of road had been a "cellphone mecca" just one day before.
Zizi was expecting the 14 officers operating from his station to have a ticket field day on the first day of a law requiring drivers to use hands-free devices to make cellphone calls. But driver after driver either wore an earpiece or resisted talking on a cellphone.
Then Adolfo Lomeli, 39, rolled by, cellphone to his ear. Zizi turned on his lights, and minutes later Lomeli was signing his ticket.
"I was just putting my phone on speaker," said the Whittier resident, telling Zizi that he hadn't heard about the new law. Zizi wasn't buying it.
"It surprises me that someone still says they don't know it was today," the officer said later. "People have had two years to prepare for this."
But law enforcement officials said the real surprise was that so many motorists, who have turned driving while in the grips of a cellphone conversation into yet another Southern California cliche, were playing by the new rules.
"The early anecdotal information we're hearing is that for the most part, we're noticing a lot more headsets and Bluetooths out there," said Tom Marshall, a CHP spokesman, though he added that it was too early for ticketing statistics.
Zizi's experience seemed to bear Marshall's information out. Despite the large number of officers, the CHP issued only 18 citations for improper cellphone use from 5 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. out of the Santa Fe Springs station, a number he called "very minimal." (Officers gave out a total of about 70 tickets during that period for all traffic offenses.)
Actually, Zizi said, catching cellphone scofflaws proved difficult.
Drivers scratch their head or rest their elbow by the window, he said. Some even hold their wireless headsets as they would a cellphone. In one case earlier in the day, Zizi let a driver go with a warning because he wasn't sure whether a violation actually occurred.
"I didn't get a clear look to see if it was a cellphone or an earpiece," Zizi said. "I gave the benefit of the doubt."
While Zizi was ticketing one scofflaw, a driver on his cellphone -- without the earpiece -- zoomed by, waving in defiance.
