Getting free passage on the 405 Express Lanes isn’t worth giving up GR8WIFE license plates
Q. Hi Honk: In a recent column you mentioned there would not be a toll if the automobile had a handicap license plate. I do not recall which toll road; I do believe it is the new one on the 405 Freeway. My wife will not get a handicap plate because her plate is GR8WIFE and she loves it.
– Harvey Gershenson, Mission Viejo
A. You seemed to know this, Harvey, but Honk didn’t until he checked in with Chris Orrock, a Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman:
Disabled-person license plates don’t offer personalized sequences, probably because the special icon and the “DP” on them doesn’t offer room for many numbers or letters.
So, for the 405 Express Lanes, Harvey, you and GR8WIFE would be out of luck.
To qualify on the 405, a person must be issued disabled-person plates and be in the car during the trip to get free passage. Yes, easy for someone to borrow the vehicle and cheat – but, in truth, most traffic laws depend on us to follow them because it is the right thing to do.
Those having disabled-person plates would still need to get a transponder from that specific tollway – that system does not have automatic-license plate readers like some tollways. Also, you would have to set aside $40 to $50 in a pot in case you use another tollway system and get charged there.
The 91 Express Lanes has the same deal – but you would need to set it up specially with that tollway for the benefit on that stretch.
HONKIN’ UPDATE: A couple of weeks ago, Honk said he would return with what was charged by Caltrans for picking up metal pipes that a semitruck’s trailer dumped all over the northbound 5 Freeway on the Grapevine the day before Thanksgiving.
As Honk previously said in these confines, the trucker or his company were responsible to pick them up and the oil that was spilled as well. Honk had been told that Caltrans picked up the pipes and would send a bill.
The trucker or the company hired firms to clean up both messes, it turns out.
Still, Caltrans did send a bill.
“The responsible party paid for the cleanup and disposal of the pipes by a company,” Michael Comeaux, a Caltrans spokesman, told Honk in an email. “Caltrans will be billing the responsible party for traffic control only. Caltrans incurred a cost of approximately $6,607 for traffic control for this incident.”
Some in the motoring public likely wanted to send their own bills.
The mishap occurred at about 11 a.m., and at 5:50 p.m., according to a CHP log, northbound traffic was backed up for 31 miles, costing drivers an estimated one-hour, 40-minute delay.
To ask Honk questions, reach him at honk@ocregister.com. He only answers those that are published. To see Honk online: ocregister.com/tag/honk. Twitter: @OCRegisterHonk