Killing Them With Kindness on Valley’s Mean Streets

Feeling stressed by your commute?

Sort of like Ricky Ricardo used your skull as a conga to play “Babalu”?

Like, when you walk into your analyst’s office, she screams: “What, you again?”

Well, Mike Kirsch of Sherman Oaks wrote in to share his solution to the ever-growing problem of commuter stress syndrome. He said he has learned to fight stress with kindness.

Wait, hold on, don’t sneer like that . . . give him a chance, OK?

“When I’m behind the wheel I make it a point to try to bestow one or more courtesies a day upon my fellow motorist,” he said. “Four-way stop signs are a great place to be courteous and it’s amazing how much fun you can have in ‘killing them with kindness.’ ”

Susan Thompson, a psychology professor at Pomona College, said Kirsch’s strategy makes a lot of sense, psychologically speaking.

“On several counts, I think that’s a great strategy,” she said.

Stress on the freeway is often caused by the feeling that we have no control over our surroundings, she said. “The sense you get on freeways is that you want to get to your destination, and instead you are blocked all the time.”

What Kirsch has done is taken some control over his commute, she said, adding that he also brings about a reciprocal response from other drivers.

I assume the response is courtesy, but since L. A. drivers are so unaccustomed to kindness, the reaction is most likely just a befuddled look.

Dear Street Smart:

I have called parking enforcement concerning a boat and trailer parked on a residential street in my neighborhood in North Hollywood and was informed that parking was limited to 72 hours.

Parking enforcement has marked the trailer tires several times, but the person who owns this boat and trailer must know all the tricks, as the trailer is moved only a few feet one way or another to cover the police markings on the tires.

This is an eyesore to the neighborhood, plus this person circumvents and manipulates the law so he doesn’t have to store this boat and trailer in a more appropriate area.

What advice would you give to me as a next step to see that this boat and trailer are removed from a city street?

Gerald T. Hitsman, North Hollywood

Dear Reader:

So, you want your neighbor to shove off before your neighborhood starts to look like a marina?

As you noted, your neighbor has learned how to circumvent the rule that requires all vehicles parked on city streets to be driven at least one mile every 72 hours. Since a boat trailer has no odometer, parking enforcement officers can’t check to see if the S. S. Guttershark has been driven at least a mile.

Roger Gornick, a Los Angeles senior traffic supervisor, said the problem of boats and trailers parked for extended periods is perhaps one of the biggest parking enforcement problems in the Valley. But he said the city has some of its own cunning tricks to deal with curb sailors such as your neighbor.

To keep the boat owner from hiding or erasing the chalk mark, he said, parking enforcement officers can leave “discreet” marks on the vehicle that the vehicle owner won’t find. He discreetly declined to reveal how they do this.

“We won’t tell you how we do it, we just do it,” he said.

If that fails, Gornick said he has another secret weapon that is sure to scuttle that swab. Again, he would not disclose what it is, but he made it sound like it’s the best thing in crime fighting since the discovery of fingerprints.

To get Gornick and his troops to investigate such a problem on your street, call the city’s abandoned vehicle unit at 1-800-ABANDON and tell them that you have a chronic parking violator that you want put to sea.

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Dear Street Smart:

My concern is with the intersection of Burbank and Lankershim boulevards. Please refer to the simple sketch I’ve provided and consider that I, in car A, have arrived at the intersection and am waiting for a green signal. I leave room to my right for drivers who wish to turn right. Although I am veering right onto Tujunga Avenue, I do not use my right turn signal.

Car B pulls up to my right and turns on his right turn signal. But when the light turns green, I am frustrated to find that the driver veers onto Tujunga parallel to me. This is a dangerous move because Tujunga is much narrower than Lankershim.

Please print the correct legal manner to negotiate this intersection.

Eric Hall, North Hollywood

Dear Reader:

I know this intersection. It’s about as confusing as Middle East politics.

The reason your problem is so difficult to address is that neither you nor car B are violating the rules of that intersection. This is because the rules are not clear. It would help if there were pavement markings or a sign that required car B to turn right and markings designating your lane for turning onto Tujunga Avenue.

I suggest you call the city’s street engineering department for the East Valley at (818) 989-8441 and ask that pavement markings be applied that clearly define the boundaries and rules of the intersection.

Confusion reigns without clearly defined boundaries, whether in this intersection or the Middle East.

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Dear Street Smart:

In your column on Monday, July 12, you gave a phone number to call for street repairs. I called the number at about 2 o’clock that afternoon to report some chuck-holes in my street. On returning home at noon the next day, I found the potholes had been fixed!

I called the street department and thanked them for such a fast service, but I thought your readers should know about it.

Ned Skaff, Van Nuys

Dear Reader:

Hey, I’m just as surprised as you are.

I’ll admit, down deep I probably suspected that when people called the Los Angeles street maintenance department at (213) 485-5661 to get a pothole fixed, some apathetic city employee with a union-protected job would just scribble down the complaint and chuck it in the trash.

Obviously, that kind of thinking is, um, full of holes.