When it comes to online traffic schools, you'd figure a strong regulator is needed to oversee an industry some say is rife with cheating, with stay-at-home students Googling test answers or having others take courses in their place.
In Los Angeles, that regulator is . . . the county Housing Authority.
And equally unsuitable overseers can be found throughout California thanks to a legislative quirk authorizing the state Department of Motor Vehicles to regulate nearly 400 brick-and-mortar traffic schools -- but not their online counterparts.
According to the DMV, county courts have had the authority since the late 1980s to approve "home study" traffic schools for the elderly and disabled people. Those schools were originally correspondence courses but have given way to online programs available to everyone.
The catch is that California's courts don't have the resources to oversee online traffic schools. So for years they've outsourced the task to others.
As a result, online traffic schools statewide are now monitored by a hodgepodge of public and private entities. That's where the L.A. County Housing Authority comes in.
Frank Medina, who runs the Housing Authority's traffic-school program, said that in the most recent fiscal year, more than 200,000 L.A. County residents enrolled in electronic courses offered by 82 locally based online traffic schools.
That compares with nearly 193,000 people who opted to attend one of the 154 brick-and-mortar schools in the region.
"The number of brick-and-mortar traffic schools has been steadily declining," Medina said, "while the number of home-study schools has been going up and up and up."
As much as he'd like to rigorously police the online schools, Medina just doesn't have the resources. His agency has its hands full with its main job: providing homes to low-income people.
"For all we know, the one taking the course could be your kid or grandkid," Medina acknowledged. "We need to nail down that the one who gets the citation is the one taking the class. But that takes money."
My interest in traffic schools resulted from a recent incident involving a stop sign at which my car may or may not (mostly not) have come to a complete halt before making a turn.
Traffic schools allow drivers to address black marks on their records. Attending an eight-hour class can prevent your insurer from learning of an infraction and thus keep your premiums from going up.
