Motorists Take the Safe Road, or Pull Out All the Stops

Free spirits by nature, we live in chains on the road, enslaved to the tyranny of the red octagon.

Stop signs always stand in our way.

Mute bullies, they pop up like forbidding mushrooms to control our lives and stifle the beauty of our human instinct to roam.

Stop signs and traffic lights make us late to work, grind brakes and clutches to powder, and deny us the blissfully ignorant pleasure of a stopless cruise between points A and Z.

They also keep us from dying, killing each other, drowning in a sea of staggering, lifelong debt and litigation, and generally mushing up some of our most beloved, costly and vital possessions.

But that does not mean that we cannot despise the scarlet killjoys and ponder their purpose.

Dear Street Smart:

My gripe is the “NO TURN ON RED” and “LEFT TURN ON GREEN ARROW ONLY” signs. There is often plenty of time to turn, but because of the sign, you must sit and wait.

Yesterday, I was driving west on Ventura Road by the Ventura Freeway, past the Camarillo outlet stores, and wanted to turn right and go over the Las Posas Road bridge to enter the westbound freeway.

At the signal, the sign reads “NO TURN ON RED.” There was nobody coming from either direction, and a line of cars behind me started beeping their horns for me to turn. Even they could see there was nobody to yield to.

But there I had to sit, just because of that stupid sign. Please remove that sign and all those other similarly unnecessary signs. It would greatly ease the traffic flow problem.

Jeri Boeing

Oxnard

Dear Reader:

Much as we fantasize about taking a huge wrench to these signs ourselves, Street Smart is neither a Caltrans employee nor immune to prosecution.

In fact, we’re rather proud that our criminal record only says “occasionally-too-smart-for-his-own-good traffic violator” and not “FELON.” So we’ll stick to writing and politely leave the sign-yankin’ to the pros.

The state Department of Transportation stuck that sign there specifically to thwart rush-hour crashes between cars entering and leaving the freeway via the often-busy bridge.

There the sign will stay, unless Camarillo Traffic Engineer Tom Fox decides that traffic can operate safely without it and asks Caltrans to pull it out.

“It’s something we’ve been monitoring lately,” Fox said. “Motorists in Camarillo are generally accustomed to being able to turn right on red, because there aren’t a lot of those signs here. I wouldn’t say [they’re] spoiled; I think it’s just a matter of what they’re accustomed to seeing at most intersections.”

Dear Street Smart:

I call your attention to the Camarillo intersection of Santa Rosa Road (heading southwest) and the northbound onramp for the Ventura Freeway.

There are six traffic signals. It is not clear as to which traffic several of the signals are directing. The placement and number of signals at this intersection is very confusing and / or misleading for any newcomer to the area.

Even now, as a three-year resident, I get momentarily fooled when I turn on to the right lane of Santa Rosa Road from Adolfo Road and see a green signal first. My brain thinks that that signal is for continuing on Santa Rosa Road; however, it is actually for the onramp.

Will you investigate the need for all six signals and their placement? Thank you.

Jacqueline Walden

Camarillo

Dear Reader:

That passel o’ lights has always confused us a bit too. Wish we had room to publish your sharply detailed map, but here goes--in prose:

One signal on each side of the onramp lets pedestrians--many from Adolfo Camarillo High--cross the ramp, Caltrans spokeswoman Pat Reid says.

A third signal, just north of the freeway as you drive southwest on Santa Rosa, is meant to help drivers using the road distinguish between their status and the status of onramp traffic.

The last three signals--one just past the third light, and two more hanging directly above the road, are solely meant to control southwest-bound traffic on Santa Rosa Road.

Reid says Caltrans will investigate whether all six signals are needed and check whether their placement is confusing.

Dear Street Smart:

Who decides where to install a stop sign?

My Ventura home is on Via La Paz, a dead-end street shared by only one other home. There have been no problems pulling out of our street onto Via Baja, which tends to be very busy at certain points during the day.

As I returned home one day, I noticed a spray-painted board reading, “DO NON REMOVE: DANGER” in my front yard. I removed the board only to find a hole dug beneath it.

The following week, a stop sign was installed in the edge of my yard where the hole was. A few days later, a white limit line was painted at the bottom of the street.

Stopping behind this line, it is impossible to see the oncoming traffic.

I do not understand why this location was chosen for a stop sign. I am also wondering why, if the city of Ventura chose to put a sign here, we the property owners weren’t notified.

Cathy L. Brucker

Ventura

Dear Reader:

Blame the lawyers, and the people who hire them.

Ventura traffic engineers were spending so much time in court defending themselves from paid witnesses who routinely found them at fault--despite any blame for accidents that really fell on the drivers involved--that the city decided that it was more cost-effective to spend five years and several thousand dollars installing 400 to 500 stop signs.

“The law says that if you have an uncontrolled situation where you have no stop sign, you have to guarantee that [drivers] can see far enough to approach the intersection safely at 30 mph,” says Nazir Lalani, Ventura’s traffic engineer.

“We don’t have [clear] intersections like that anywhere in town because of vehicles, fences, hedges and RVs. . . . The only place you can guarantee that is out in the middle of the Arizona desert.”

Lalani says your own personal sheet-metal chaperon was installed because that intersection is essentially blind.

He adds: “Most people have contacted us and said, ‘Thank goodness you did this, because we were going to have an accident out here.’ ”

NEXT WEEK: A final run of road questions. And then, speaking of accidents, we’ll detour briefly to another topic: Kindly write to us about scofflaws who endanger your life.

Miffed? Baffled? Peeved? Or merely perplexed? Street Smart can answer your most probing questions about the joys and horrors of driving around Ventura County. Write to: Street Smart, c/o Mack Reed, Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition, 1445 Los Angeles Ave., Room 208, Simi Valley 93065. Include a simple sketch if needed to help explain your question. Or call our Sound Off line, 653-7546. In either case, include your full name, address, and day and evening phone numbers. Street Smart cannot answer anonymous queries, and might edit your letter.