Q. If a person has the right to have a peace officer present during the issuing of a citation, then how is it possible to enforce a red-light camera infraction?
— Eric Peterson, Granada Hills
A. Honk recently told the wonderful inhabitants of Honkland that when the California Highway Patrol spies a speeder from above, in a plane or a helicopter, the citing officer is the one in the sky and not the one in the black-and-white who catches up with the offender and hands over the ticket.
When a driver trips the enforcement cameras because he ran a red light, of course, there isn’t necessarily an officer nearby.
The state Legislature has set up guidelines for police agencies when using red-light cameras, said Officer Danny Mihalik, a collision investigator in Garden Grove’s Neighborhood Traffic Unit. His city has had red-light cameras since 2004.
In Garden Grove, the citing officer is the one at his or her work station who later views the photographs and video taken by the cameras and decides whether a citation should be issued.
If a motorist fights a Garden Grove red-light ticket, that citing officer, accompanied by a deputy city attorney, goes to court to support the citation.
Email Honk, if you like — he knows many drivers despise red-light cameras, and some will tell you they are illegal.
Well, as Honk’s attorney father used to tell him, the only opinions that matter when it comes to determining the law are from those who wear robes for a living — judges, people, not singers in a choir or Nordstrom models.
Love ’em or hate ’em, red-light cameras are meant to prevent one of the worst types of street collisions: T-bones.
“Those broadsides are always dangerous, even at slow speeds,” Mihalik said.
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Q. Perhaps you can give me a lead to finding an answer, or better yet the actual answer: Does the state or the county have minimum and maximum width requirements for parking stalls? The stalls I am thinking about are straight (not diagonal) and in a condominium parking area.
— Liza Garcia, El Modena
A. The state doesn’t have such a law, leaving it up to local jurisdictions to set a standard, said Shannon Widor, a spokesman for Orange County’s public works department, but the requirements “tend to be very similar.”
In your case, Liza, because you are not in a city but in unincorporated county territory, the county’s regulations are in play.
“The minimum dimension for a parking space (in unincorporated areas of Orange County) is 9 feet wide by 18 feet deep,” Widor said. “If the parking space is next to a wall or obstruction, the width is required to be 11 feet wide. …
“The parking-space sizes apply to any proposed parking space in a parking lot regardless of the use (e.g. condo, commercial, etc.) and there is no established maximum,” he added.
Exceptions are disabled-person parking spaces, which should provide more room to get in and out of cars and trucks.
Also, a parking slot could have been installed before the current law is in place and grandfathered in.
Honkin’ fact: The first traffic cones were made of wood and difficult to see, easily broken and not real inclined to take a glance and pop back up. Then in the 1940s, Charles D. Scanlon, who worked for the city of Los Angeles in the streets department, designed and built cones with used tires and then started having the cones made with rubber sheets; quickly, L.A. started using them. (Sources: Caltrans and trafficsafetystore.com)
To ask Honk questions, reach him at [email protected]. He only answers those that are published. To see Honk online: ocregister.com/tag/honk. Twitter: @OCRegisterHonk