It's long, it's dull and 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're about to drive by Harris Ranch!"

Raising a family in Southern California and having parents who live in Northern California means that in November and December of every year, I spend quite a bit of high-quality time on the most-traveled freeway in California -- the 5 Freeway.

Now that my sons are teenagers with earphones permanently attached to their craniums (no longer 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 to do on these long hauls but observe other drivers on the freeway. Or, I should say, observe other drivers speeding down the freeway at a clip well in excess of the posted 70 mph maximum speed. 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 5 Freeway that read "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 5 Freeway from L.A. to where we turn off toward San Jose is basically one long, open brown field broken up by the occasional cow.

So I called the Kern County office of the California 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 only gets over to the 5 Freeway two or three times a month.

You'll know it when you see it, though. It's a small, black-and-white single-engine plane that has "CHP" written on the bottom for your viewing convenience from below. However, if you're being paced for speeding from the air, the plane will attempt to fly in your blind spot so that you don't notice it until well after ground troops have been called in to set you straight. I will say this: Someone is doing a heck of a job catching the serious speeders on this highway. On the west side of the 5 near Junction 46, a large, detached big rig trailer sits conspicuously in a field. The side facing the freeway is covered with the type of white butcher paper preschoolers put handprints on for their parents. But the message on it, 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 a driver's license is only taken away for traveling at speeds over 100 mph, it's an astounding declaration.

It turns out the sign is the handiwork of Judge Gary Ingle of Kern County Superior Court. Ingle apparently became tired of freeway travelers using the 5 as their own personal autobahn. A hand-painted sign on the side of a trailer? You've got to give Ingle credit for 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 my choice of spouse: "Cruise control."

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