By John Harlow | Editor-in-Chief
The news that Los Angeles County has laid down rumble strips in Canoga Park to slow Valley street racers has prompted calls for similar measures to be applied on Sunset Boulevard.
The plan is to calm the Ruthless Ryderz motorcycle club on their Sunday and Wednesday night parades through town.
It reflects a decade of community exasperation with the club, which has strained relationships with local law enforcement who appear helpless to do anything about the 80-mph antics.
Yet we do seem to be in a relatively quiet period, after the recent death of club rider David “Baby Face” Babalyan at the Chautauqua Green intersection prompted a stepping up of police enforcement. That resulted in a flurry of speeding tickets and at least one seized bike.
But community members know we have been here before, and the bad bikers will return.
Long-term solutions without paying a price remain elusive.
LAPD enforcement is expensive and Angelenos have been resistant to pay the taxes to employ more cops—they are stretched thinner than in any comparable metropolis.
Also, to avoid class actions, when cops pull over bikers they also have to pull over Palisadians who can be equally speed-blind.
Frustrated Palisadians are out on the street on biker nights, video recording them and deploying speed cameras. Police have warned they have limited legal use and could provoke even more trouble.
Hard engineering solutions, such as rumble strips, would disproportionately affect the community—we drive along Sunset a lot more than the bikers do.
There are “scarecrow” tactics, such as parking an unoccupied LAPD Crown Vic at a high-visibility intersection. Or, even cheaper, imitate San Luis Obispo and set up solar-powered blue and white light array on a verge which maybe look like a Crown Vic from a distance.
But drivers grow wise to such tricks.
Maybe foreigners have some brilliant ideas? Brilliant, maybe, practical, less so.
In 2006 the Danish Council for Traffic Safety proposed stationing volunteer nudes of both genders at traffic hotspots holding “slow down” signs.
In Bolivia, urban volunteers dress up as furry dancing zebras to direct and slow traffic.
In Trinidad, police warn speeding drivers that victims of past crashes will appear in your back seat as ghosts. Hey, we believe crazier things in California.
The answer may lay in cheaper high-tech enforcement, with a denser web of CCTV cameras feeding the LA Atsac computer traffic system that can alter red lights in real time.
Your car is identified doing 60 out of The Village? It will be held at the next red light, with your car license number flashed up on a board, a penalty shared by drivers behind you.
Shaming works, as does positive reinforcement—the same upgraded Atsac system could monitor your speeds and award you tax rebates for consistent sane and patient driving
But all this is years away.
And as with so much in modern living, it’s a frustrating truth that there are no easy solutions.
One can only hope that the extreme macho biking mythos, a leather-clad throwback to Eisenhower America, will soon fade and the Palisadians can sleep at night without grinding their teeth or rumbling their roads.
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