Comedy relief By NATHAN WELTON South Coast Beacon My name is Nathan Welton, and I am a traffic violator. Those were the words I recently had to utter, head hung low, to fellow miscreants in traffic school. But no sooner had I admitted my aberrant deeds did I look up to see my comrades clapping and cheering me along the road to recovery. “Hi, Nathan!” they bellowed in unison. This wasn’t the clichéd traffic school that plagues the nightmares of would-be speeders — no, it was comedy traffic school, modeled after a 12-step addiction recovery program and held in a room adorned with a poster of goofy celebrities, including MC Hammer. All traffic schools, even those online, produce revenue for local and state governments and allow drivers to prevent tickets from fouling their records, but comedy traffic schools remind motorists of road rules by subjecting them to eight hours of jokes. Accountants, retirees, high school kids, plumbers, construction workers, car salesmen, writers and medical headhunters all sat at attention at Funny and Painless Traffic School on Micheltorena Street a few weeks ago, where instructor Connie Bryan, a 6’3” musician and comedian, began with wisecracks about gastrointestinal distress and the clergy. We all sat bewildered. For this, we had committed an infraction worth one point on our driving records, such as speeding or running a stop sign, and the court had offered us the option to learn from Bryan — provided we hadn’t been to school in the previous 18 months. In addition to the ticket’s base fine, traffic school costs a local court fee of $24, a state fee of $7 and tuition of roughly $25. The county collected $443,661 last year from the local court fee, and is on par to make a comparable amount this year, according to Rayna Pinkerton, the Chief Fiscal Officer for the Santa Barbara Superior Court. She noted that the money goes into the County General Fund, which pays for everything from planting trees to fixing potholes. Bryan didn’t tell us we were paying for city beautification, but she told jokes — and once they had relaxed us, she put us on the spot: we had to introduce ourselves as traffic violators and explain what we had done wrong. A European luxury car salesman was doing 85 in a 65; the plumber illegally passed an old woman on Cliff Drive; the accountant drove the wrong way in a parking lot; the token 16-year old was going 60 in a 40; and the fashionable eye-roller in the back row had hit 100 in her Mustang — and she was the only one who admitted to not wearing a seatbelt. With each admission of guilt, the class discussed in dizzying detail the laws and regulations of the violations. There seems to be little uniformity in ticket costs, violations are increasing because of budget cuts, one third of all drivers will be in a bad accident where someone is seriously hurt or killed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But while eight hours of comedy and factoids and an extra $60 may seem like a lot, some drivers could look at it as an investment. “If I make $20 an hour, eight hours of my time plus all the traffic school specific fees is a little over $200,” explained Pete Moraga, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Network of California, a nonprofit trade organization. “If my good driver discount is saving me $300 a year, then traffic school is worth it.” He explained that insurance savings based on traffic school attendance varies widely, but suggested that good drivers and very bad drivers attend. After a certain number of points on a driver’s record, “nobody wants to insure you and you’re considered dangerous — an assigned risk — and you’re paying the highest rates of anybody.” And avoiding “assigned risk” status could potentially save speeders substantial amounts of money. “In a nutshell, because traffic school taught you how bad you are, the insurance company agrees to give you a break,” said Moraga. Bad we were. And to teach us a lesson, Bryan banged fact upon fact into the class between her comedy routines, sometimes combining the two. “The stats on drunken driving are staggering,” she said at one point. She paused and looked at her students. “They’re staggering,” she said again. “Get it? Staggering?” Since we weren’t too quick, she feigned uncoordinated inebriation in front of the blackboard. But after the joke clicked, Bryan shocked us: between 10 p.m. and midnight, 10 percent of those on the road are drunk, she said, and between midnight and 2 a.m., 20 percent of drivers are DUI. She then continued into the little-known Law of Physical Control, a rule that allows cops to ticket drunks — who may have absolutely no intention to drive — for sitting in their cars while they sober up. Bryan segued from DUI into driving while sleepy, and asked the class for ways to stay awake while driving. A white-haired senior with an Alabama drawl offered his superlative solution: “The best way to stay awake is to eat stale peanuts.” The plumber offered an even better idea: “I like to bring along jalapeños and take a bite every once in a while.” No wonder we were all in traffic school. On day two I had the pleasure of sitting next to Jah Allan, an aging Guyanan reggae musician who liked to poke his neighbors in the shoulder and announce, “Rastaman is the solution to the world’s problems.” When the traffic discussion steered toward driving under the influence, Jah Allan defended marijuana and espoused its numerous benefits, to the disbelief, laughs and cheers of his classmates. “Legalize it, don’t criticize it,” he interrupted continually from the back of the room, trying to explain a hyperbolic relationship between THC and religiosity. We all gazed at him blankly, and only a select few followed his train of thought. But most of us agreed when he chuckled and proclaimed, “It’s really painless, man — this is a painless traffic school.”