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Heart worn on license plates

Some folks wear their innermost feelings on their sleeves. Others choose to display them on their license plates.

Three different women have chosen to convey three totally different sentiments to the driving public: There was the contented young lady in the brown Ford Explorer with the upbeat license plate: 1HPGRL. It might be too generous to say that the woman driving the black Nissan Sentra had a "negative attitude." Her license plate read: YUHATME. And one clever young woman found a new way of telling others not to judge her until they had walked in her shoes. The license plate on her silver F150 announced: 8EZ2BME.

Question: Your column on the phony e-mail about bogus new driving laws had me cracking up. I do have a question for you, though. If you are driving in the fast lane and you come upon someone who is driving slower than people on the right, are you allowed to honk or flash your lights at them? I lived in the state of Washington for a while and it was legal there. I had to do it every day. Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Hood, Corona

Answer: I haven't had the pleasure of driving in the state of Washington yet, Jason, but it sounds like quite a party. The law in California says that no matter what lane you are in, if the driver behind you flashes his lights and honks his horn, you have to get out of his way. However, this is only supposed to be used when the honking and flashing driver has a true emergency.

If you do this simply because you don't approve of the speed of the vehicle in front of you - YOU could get a citation for unlawful use of your audible device.

Question: My grandson wants to know if it's true that a driver does not have to pull over if he is being stopped by a car that only has a yellow overhead light bar. The talk among his friends is that you only have to pull over for a car that has red and blue lights. Pat Longuevan

Answer: Important note to Pat's grandson: When a law enforcement vehicle turns on its light bar and indicates that you should pull over and you decide not to, the argument that you didn't think that it had the appropriate color light bar will not fly when you appear in front of the judge on charges of evading the police.

The decision as to which combination of red, white, blue or amber lights are used on a law enforcement vehicle is up to each agency.

Regardless of the color combination, if those lights start flashing, pulling over is not an option. Please also remind your grandson that some agencies use "slick top" cars, with flashing lights in the rear window and no roof mounted lights at all.

Cool Reader Comment: I read your road rage article today and totally agree that if even half the drivers did what Lee Sulaeman did, the roads would be safer. I have been in a car with two different people who I would never have guessed had anger-management issues.

I asked one of them if he would like to take different cars from now on to work, since we were car pooling. When he asked why, I told him that it was because I would like to live. Charlie Shirk, Ontario

Spotted the following license plate on the back of a pickup truck as it whizzed by: LGLSPD. Would have written down the type of truck - except that it was traveling so quickly that I couldn't catch it.

Michelle Groh-Gordy is the owner of InterActive! Traffic School Online at www.trafficinteractive.com , and writes a syndicated weekly column on driving for the publications of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.