Windsor Traffic School After the Family Vacation

It’s long, it’s dull, it can be brutally hot in the summer and treacherously foggy in spots in the winter – but it will take you from the bottom of California to the top faster than you can say, “Roll up your windows, we are about to drive by Harris Ranch!”

Raising a family in Southern California and having parents that live in Northern California means that in November and December of every year I spend quite a bit of quality time on the most traveled interstate highway in California -Interstate 5.

The trick is to traverse the monotonous road fast enough to remain mentally stimulated, yet at a clip that keeps you safely under the visual radar of the CHP. After all, no one wants to deal with a ticket and traffic school after a vacation.

Now that my sons are teenagers with earphones permanently attached to their craniums, and they no longer seem to be amused with the license plate alphabet game or my mooing aloud every time I spot a cow off the side of the road, and my husband is busy concentrating on the art of eating garlic-stuffed olives while driving, I have been left with little left to do on these long hauls but observe other drivers on the interstate. Or should I say, observe other drivers speeding down the interstate at a clip well in excess of the posted 70 mph maximum speed.

Perhaps, there will be a few folks dealing with a ticket and traffic school after vacation time after all.

I couldn’t help wondering if all the folks whipping by so quickly had noticed the white regulatory signs with black writing posted all along the I-5 that say, “Radar Enforced, Patrolled by Aircraft”.

Then it hit me.

Throughout my many trips on this road, from countless vacations as a child going to Disneyland and Baja California, through college semester breaks and now innumerable trips to Grandma and Grandpa’s for every conceivable holiday, I have never once seen a single aircraft patrolling this highway. It’s not as if the plane could be hidden by trees or other scenery. The I-5 freeway from LA to where we turn off towards San Jose is basically one long open brown field broken up by the occasional cow.

Perhaps the authorities felt that just the threat of a citation and traffic school would be enough to deter the speedy crowd.

I called the Kern County highway patrol and asked about the mysterious missing aircraft. I was told that the plane patrols more frequently closer to its home base in Fresno. It really only gets over to the I-5 two or three times a month. Apparently, though, you will know it when you see it. It is a small, black and white single engine plane that has “CHP” written on the bottom – for your viewing convenience from below.

However, according to the Kern County CHP, if you are being paced for speeding from the air, the plane will attempt to fly in your blind spot so that you don’t notice them until well after they have called in the ground troops to set you straight.

I will say this; someone must be doing a heck of a job catching the serious speeders on this highway, though.

On the west side of the I-5, near Junction 46 there is a large, detached big rig trailer sitting conspicuously in a field. The side facing the freeway is covered with the type of white butcher’s paper that children make handprints on for parents in preschool.

However, the message on it, spelled out in broad letters in various colors of poster paint, is no child’s folly; “SPEEDERS: 1,292 licenses taken here last year!”

When you consider that a driver’s license is only taken away for traveling at speeds over 100 miles per hour, and traffic school is not even offered up as an option – that is a pretty astounding statement.

It turns out the sign is the handy work of Judge Gary Ingle of the Kern County Superior Court. Judge Ingle apparently became tired of a few too many interstate travelers using the I-5 as their own personal Autobahn.

A hand-painted sign on the side of a trailer?

You’ve got to give Judge Ingle credit for creative thinking outside the box.

Tactfully, I mentioned my observations to my husband and pointed out that he might want to keep an eye on his speed. Through garlic and green olives, his two word reply renewed my confidence in his driving abilities: “Cruise control,” he said.

It looks like we won’t have to worry about the after-vacation traffic school blues, after all.

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