101 405 HORROR STORIES; ACCOUNTS PUT HUMAN FACE ON COMMUTING CRISIS.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

A salesman racing to keep an appointment to clinch a big deal, an obstetrician urgently needed in the delivery room, a panicky driver trying to reach a dying mother's bedside - they had one thing in common: They got there too late.

Horror stories of gridlock at the 101-405 freeway interchange come in two basic types: late for a date, smashed in a crash.

Studio City screenwriter Rick Natkin's horror story - one of more than 1,000 that have been submitted in response to Assemblyman Wally Knox's invitation to share the pain - was of the latter variety.

Stuck at the back of a long line of cars transitioning from the northbound San Diego to the eastbound Ventura, Natkin looked in the rear view mirror and saw a car barreling down the hill toward his lovingly restored Volkswagen Thing.

``I thought, I can't move and she's going to plow right into me,'' Natkin, 46, of Studio City recalled Thursday. ``Which she did.

``I've really had a lot of problems with that intersection,'' he added. ``This is something people should make noise about.''

Hoping to move beyond mere traffic figures and dollars and cents, Knox asked his constituents in a December mailing to send him a postcard with the worst 101-405 horror stories so he could put a human face on his effort to get funding for improvements that will ease congestion.

They deluged him with accounts of frustration, anger and heartbreak.

``I think these stories tell the human story behind the statistics,'' said Knox.

One driver lamented: ``My mother passed away before I could reach her bedside due to the amount of traffic.''

A doctor wrote: ``I am an obstetrician and was unable to arrive at the hospital in Tarzana on time to deliver a baby.''

A salesman reported: ``(I) lost a $115,000 business account from being late to an important meeting because I was sitting in traffic.''

Some other snippets:

``It is the greatest negative to living in Los Angeles.''

``I missed my final exam.''

``I lost my job for being late.''

``I chipped my tooth from biting my steering wheel.''

``Missed a friend's wedding. The bad thing is weddings always start late, as did this one, and we still missed it.''

``People wait until the last minute to cut into the far right northbound lanes of the 405 to get onto the 101 Freeway. Accidents are constantly occurring or just waiting to happen as a result.''

``When I die, I would like to have all the time back I spent on the freeway. I'd like to have another 20 years.''

These experiences will be discussed Thursday at a public hearing, which Knox will preside over as chairman of the state Assembly's Select Committee on Traffic Congestion Relief.

The hearing, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel, 15433 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, will focus on the 101-405.

``I'm confident that if you just think about it, you can do it better,'' Knox said.

The 101-405 interchange is the fourth busiest in the state, with 536,000 cars passing through it daily. The expected improvements - a second lane on the connector road from the northbound San Diego Freeway to the eastbound Ventura Freeway and another lane on the northbound 405 from Mulholland Drive to the Ventura Boulevard off-ramp - would cost $13.1 million.

Judi Birnberg, 56, of Sherman Oaks ended up in a five-car pileup at the interchange on a drizzly December day about six years ago. She was transitioning onto the eastbound Ventura Freeway from the northbound 405 when ``all of a sudden I saw this line of cars in front of me stopped dead,'' she said Thursday.

She braked to within a foot of the car ahead - but the vehicle behind Birnberg rear-ended her car, pushing it into the one in front and triggering the pileup.

``Who knows how many times that happens?'' Birnberg said.

Traffic often moves so slowly through the interchange that she's happy when the speedometer hits 15 mph. Otherwise, the congestion is frustrating.

``I can't think of anything more demoralizing,'' she said.

Lea Lawrence, 46, of Sherman Oaks grew panic-stricken in a traffic jam one day. She was coming from a visit to Orange County back to the Valley to pick up her son, then 4, at preschool. But because of a huge backup starting at the intersection, she was very late. She feared the school would call police and child welfare authorities, she said Thursday.

``You couldn't go anywhere'' because of the congestion, said Lawrence. She finally got off the San Diego Freeway near Mulholland Drive and called the school, which had been out for 30 minutes by then. Her sister was able to pick the boy up, she said.

Dr. William Mower, 40, of Sherman Oaks said he often arrives late at the Emergency Department at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood because the freeway resembles a ``parking lot.''

``You cannot plan how long the delays will be,'' said Mower, so even if you give yourself extra time to arrive somewhere, congestion can be worse than you expected.

The situation causes motorists to avoid the intersection altogether, pouring traffic onto neighborhood side streets not built to carry such a load, Mower said.

CAPTION(S):

photo, drawing

PHOTO (color) Rick Natkin of Studio City was one of the motorists who wrote about their bad experiences at the 101-405 freeway interchange.

Evan Yee/Daily News

Drawing: no caption (postcards addressed to Assemblyman Wally Knox with drivers' complaints)