The Orange County Register
Local Section
Monday, March 27th, 2006

By Jim Radcliffe
Register Columnist

HONK

Drivers disability might not be visible

Q. Now I’ve seen everything! A handicapped license plate on a motorcycle! How can a disabled person who supposedly qualifies for handicapped parking get on and off a motorcycle? I think it is terrible that so many people abuse the handicapped parking law. People’s ethics sure aren’t what they use to be.
-Bob Vargo, Anaheim Hills

A. The Department of Motor Vehicles has strict guidelines on who should have disabled parking privileges.But who doesn’t remember the 1999 mini-scandal when 19 current or former UCLA football players illegally had them? According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, there are 345,062 disabled person license plates issued; 2,746 are registered to motorcycles. Always remember this: Many people we see with a special plate or placard and a perfect gait are eligible for up-front parking spaces.“Not all disabilities are apparent or observable, such as heart and lung disease,” says DMV spokesman Mike Miller. To get a disabled-person plate or placard, a medical doctor chiropractor or optometrist must sign off on it. The DMV then considers whether the person can operate the car, truck or motorcycle properly.Miller invites people who know of motorists wrongly using the plates or placards to tip off DMV officials at (800) 777-0133.

Q. As you are proceeding north on the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway, will you be able to stay in the diamond lane as you’re going onto the westbound Garden Grove (22) Freeway? Eastbound would be nice, too. It is such a pleasure to enjoy that car-pool lane.
-Rudy Mariman, Newport Beach

A. Sorry, Rudy.
The 22 will have car pool lanes by December. But there will not be ramps connecting the 5 and 22 car-pool lanes. There isn’t enough room to add any at the Orange Crush – where the 5, 22 and the Orange (57) Freeway all shake hands.
The nifty car pool ramps reduce congestion. Without them, car-pool motorists must weave out and back into car pool lanes, slowing traffic behind them.

Q. Lemon Street at Orangethorpe Avenue in Fullerton has confusing left-turn flashing-yellow lights. I’ve seen some near misses – some drivers think they can just go when in fact the oncoming traffic gets the green light. Why don’t they just fix the traffic signal?
-Mario Allua, Anaheim

A. Well, Mark Miller will tell you it isn’t broken. He is Fullerton’s city traffic engineer, and he says the yellow-arrow light works well. “It’s very effective and we feel it’s safe – or we wouldn’t be doing it,” Miller says. Only several cities in the state have them as part of a study by the federal government to determine their worth. The flashing yellow arrows allow more vehicles to move through the intersection, as the lights would otherwise be red arrows. They are meant to tell the driver; Make a left turn if you want, but be careful. There have been a couple of accidents when motorists going left turned in front of oncoming traffic. But Miller says overall he figures they are safer. Fewere people are running red lights, fewere cars and trucks are backed up in the turn lane. For you, Mario – and other opponents of the yellow arrows – there is bad news. A couple of months ago Fullerton added a fourth yellow-arrow intersection, and Miller estimates that there are two or three more coming.

Fact of the week: Scooter Patrol took 76 people home on St. Patricks Day, says Anthony Panzica, who founded the group nearly three years ago. On a typical Friday, the free service carts home perhaps 10.
A volunteer shows up with a scooter and stows it in the tipsy person’s vehicle. The volunteer drives the man or woman home and then scoots back on the gas or electric powered scooter. Scooter Patrol serves beach communities from Huntington Beach to Long Beach’s Belmont Shore.
For info on when pickups are available, call Scooter Patrol at (562) 577-7365 or visit sccoterpatrol.org