Q: If the CHP existed and pulled over speeders and reckless drivers on Highway 17, you might have a safer highway. People do what they usually feel entitled to. I wish there were more traffic enforcement on the roads.
S.J.
A: The cavalry is returning. The state will hire 1,000 more CHP officers over the next few years.
Q: Hello Gary, you’ve got a great column and I enjoy reading it very much. We don’t have anything like this in Michigan (metro Detroit + Ann Arbor).
I’ve been in Sunnyvale and San Jose since about April 11 on a tech-auto engineering project. I’m middle-aged and have to admit that daytime driving has been a pleasure around here. Mindful and courteous drivers are my observation, usually. Michigan’s freeways are essentially racetracks, but everyone seems used to this and accelerates to stay in the flow. Michigan state police usually work in corridors to address this problem.
In the Bay Area on both occasions when I drove to the ocean on weekends, on 92 to Half Moon Bay and 17 to Santa Cruz, I was completely startled by bands of high-speed motorcycles passing between cars, often within inches of their handlebars tearing off car mirrors. This does not happen in Michigan! One wrong move and somebody could be seriously hurt or killed.
Ricky Raeff, Adrian, MI
A: Welcome to the Bay Area, and thanks for your observations. I agree that lane-splitting, which is legal in California, can be very risky.
Q: I commute along Niles Canyon Road every day and have been curious about signal lights installed at both the Main Street intersection and at Pleasanton-Sunol Road.
I don’t think the Main Street lights have ever been turned on, and the ones at the three-way intersection of Niles Canyon, Pleasanton-Sunol Road and Sunol Road were only on for a few weeks. What is Caltrans’ plan for these lights?
Wayne Starron, Pleasanton
A: The lights were on at the intersection of Niles Canyon, Pleasanton-Sunol Road and Sunol Road in Sunol, but the controller cabinet for the lights was damaged in a crash. Caltrans is waiting on the parts to fix the lights. As for the lights at Main Street, Caltrans is waiting on PG&E to electrify the system, then will take the remaining steps to turn on the lights.
Q: Glad to have you back. I don’t know who wrote a recent column headline (about a 1979 crash in which a driver lost control and collided head-on with another vehicle, killing himself and his girlfriend), but my pain is for the person or people,
not mentioned, in the other car. I have been crashed into twice while stopped at red lights and my sympathies always go to the most innocent people in any collision.
David Russel, Mountain View
A: I understand.
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