Traffic Schools

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.

Huntington Beach has become the first city in the state to offer traffic school for bicyclists who break the law. The city's police officers now give cyclists the option of going to court and paying high fines or going to traffic school. Some counties, including Santa Cruz and Marin, offer traffic school for bicyclists, but court permission is required first. In Huntington Beach, violators will not need permission or go to court if they elect to take the city's offer. Unlike the much longer traffic school for drivers, the Police Department's Adult Bicycle Safety Program takes two hours, said Lt. Russell Reinhart.

WHERE IS the place you are most likely to find yourself nibbling pizza in the company of a TV commercial magnate, the head of development for a well-known production company, a handsome actor and a twice-as-handsome screenwriter? Spago would be a good guess--but would you believe traffic school? In the course of going places, one may occasionally break or at least bend the rules of the road.

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.

At least 20 traffic schools have been issuing certificates to drivers who never took an eight-hour course required to erase traffic citations from their records, according to state officials. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has been conducting a fraud investigation into the pattern of abuse, DMV spokeswoman Gina McGuiness said last week. She refused to identify the schools, saying it would jeopardize the investigation.

Choosing which traffic school to attend in Ventura County could drive you crazy. Scenario: You're a Ventura County resident minding your own business, doing nothing more than 75 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone, and they give you a traffic citation within the county. Fortunately, this is your first offense in a long time and you are eligible to attend traffic school to keep those insurance premiums down. Aren't you lucky!

Despite truth-in-labeling laws, the Funny Traffic School isn't so very. That is the first lesson of the day in what is only euphemistically a "school." Despite the current trend for appealingly jolly names, traffic schools remain basically what they always were: a combination of a high-school home room on the last day of the term, a military instruction session in something like saluting technique, and Sunday afternoon in a minimum-security prison.

I was, of course, blameless. The fact that I was cited for speeding three blocks from my house cannot possibly have been my fault. I was driving down Linda Vista at what I thought was a seemly pace when I noticed two uniformed men standing by motorcycles on the other side of the street. I thought, "Isn't that nice? They are sharing the camaraderie of their work, their challenges, their dreams." What they were sharing was a plan to trap this one-woman crime wave in her high-powered Chevrolet.

Be they gourmets, gamblers, penny-pinchers or just people with a desire to be entertained, most errant drivers can find a traffic school that exactly suits their tastes. In the last several years there has been a proliferation of specialty traffic schools in Los Angeles hoping to cash in on the California vehicle code violator's desire for a clean driving slate.

This column is not an admission of guilt. I was doing the speed of traffic. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. My heart sank when the red-and-blues flashed in my rearview mirror while I drove down the Harbor Freeway late one evening. As anyone who knows me would know, sweet-talking the officer was not an option. The cost of the traffic citation wasn't going to be a problem. It's just money.

FOR much of my adult life, one phrase has stuck in my head with regard to dating: "You must put yourself in a target-rich environment." So after countless hours spent at sporting events and bars, the gym and Home Depot, imagine my surprise when I realized that all I really had to do was go to traffic school. When did traffic school become the new pickup joint?

Orange County supervisors voted Tuesday to retain the firm that runs traffic schools in the county, choosing it over a competing company that offered to do the work for nearly 20% less. In deciding which company would receive the $1.6-million contract, the county decided to reduce the importance of price in the decision from 20% to 10%. The winning company, National Traffic Safety Institute, has had the contract since 1995.

It's a Tuesday morning on Pico Boulevard, and I've just been cut off by a guy in a black Escalade, cellphone wedged between his chin and shoulder, slicing across three lanes of traffic to make a right onto the Fox lot. Things like that happen all the time in Los Angeles, and normally I'd go through a set of stock reactions, hitting my horn or swearing, as if this were a personal affront.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn and his challenger, Antonio Villaraigosa, tangled over trust and leadership Monday night in a scrappy debate dominated by the question of which candidate has the integrity to run City Hall. The mayor and city councilman sparred over crime, traffic and schools. But their tussle over character captured the harsh tone of a mayoral race that pits Hahn and Villaraigosa against each other for the second time in four years.

Did you know that air bags have revised the proper steering-wheel hand positions? Or that the right-of-way on mountain roads now goes to the uphill driver? Safe driving is no laughing matter, but instructor Brian Laughlin, a nine-year veteran, uses humor to convey the latest word in traffic law and lifesaving information to his captive audiences at the Beverly Hills location of the Comedy Traffic School.

The company that runs the county's traffic school is under scrutiny from the newest county supervisor because one of its top officials was recently convicted of bribing a New York state labor commissioner. Because of that conviction, Orange County should take a hard look before renewing the National Traffic Safety Institute's contract, said newly elected Supervisor Lou Correa.

It had all the potential of becoming the most boring morning in the history of traffic schools until the teacher became a siren, a motorcyclist, an old pedestrian with a walker, an irate motorist, a drunk driver, a construction worker stopping traffic and a police officer writing a ticket, all within a few minutes. Actor and comedian Kevin Carr was just doing his job for the Lettuce Amuse U Laff 'N Learn Terrific School.

It all started in Cabozon. That's an area about 20 miles from Palm Springs. I was driving to La Quinta from Pasadena where I had kept a doctor's appointment and gone about doing good works, as is my wont. I was, of course, blameless. I was driving along at a reasonable speed, but fast enough to avoid being overrun by the cars following and passing me. When what to my wondering eyes did appear but a flashing red light atop a black-and-white sedan behind me.

Talk about a comedian's nightmare. Your audience is in a dour mood. No one wants to be there. There are no drinks to lighten the atmosphere, and your material must be clean. Worst of all, your comedy set can last four to eight hours. Under these conditions, can anyone be funny? That is the driving question at the dozens of comedy traffic school throughout the state.

Comedy traffic school instructor Earl Boretz wanted to liven up his class one recent evening. So he attempted to leaven the facts with humor. Say you're driving below the speed limit on winding Topanga Canyon Road, he told his 18 students. If a trail of cars behind you grows to five, you're legally required to pull over and let them pass. But how, Boretz concluded, can anyone see five cars behind them on that twisting road? A handful of the casually dressed students chuckled.