The annoyances of LA Driving…
Ah, where to start, that’s the question! Since I’ve brought up the subject, I figured I might as well sound off about some of the things that bug me. The biggest problem with LA drivers is the combination of balls-out arrogance and mind numbing stupidity. Put those together and you’ve got a hell of a combo.
The ones that annoy me the most have got to be the ones that I see as suffering from "center-of-the-universe" syndrome (CotU for short). These a-holes are the ones that are convinced that they ARE the center of the universe and that the rest of us are just petty annoyances and obstacles between them and their destination. They’re the clowns using the right turn lane at stop lights as a passing lane (a personal favorite of mine—I’ve raced people that are pulling this stunt to make sure they don’t get ahead of me, just because it annoys me so much. I know, juvenile, but what can I say). They’re the same people that think that “no left turn”, “no parking between 4 pm & 7 pm”, “yield” and “no stopping anytime” signs apply to everyone BUT them. And they’re the same people that will pull into traffic, block several lanes to make a left turn, and thus force everyone in those blocked lanes to wait for the same break in oncoming traffic that this jerk is waiting for, simply because he (or she—CotU knows no gender) didn’t want to take the time to wait for a break (or, god forbid, look for a different way to get across the street!).
Ranking right up there with “center of the universe” guy is the clown living on his cell phone. I don’t want to hear anything about how it’s essential to keep in touch, how studies have shown this, that or the other thing… it’s all BS. I have a cell phone. I’ve used it in my car. I also have a headset and, when I get in the car, I take a few seconds, plug the phone into the headset, put the earpiece in my ear and then, surprise, surprise, I’m able to carry on conversations without having to hold a phone the whole time. It strikes me as painfully obvious that, if you’re driving along, holding a phone to your ear, you’re less able to do things like pay attention to what’s next to you, pay attention to what’s behind you, look in your rearview mirror or any of the myriad other things you need to do while driving. (The whole “cell phone use hasn’t been proven to affect driving” is just so much crap, right up there with the tobacco companies denying for decades that cigarette smoking caused cancer.) Chances are good that the clown ahead of me that can’t stay in his lane, makes erratic lane changes, speeds up and slows down without any rhyme or reason will turn out to be the idiot with a cell phone in his hand.
These are the two biggest offenders, but there are a few other, smaller things that bug me, that may be things I’m more aware of than other people (they’re my pet peeves of the road, I guess you could say).
For instance, what is it about LA drivers that make them incapable of signaling a left turn before the light changes? I live in an older neighborhood and there are lots of streets that don’t have a specified left turn lane at stoplights. What happens with annoying regularity is I’ll pull up to one of these lights and there will be several cars in the right lane and only one or two in the left lane. The reason all these cars are in the right lane is because they know, as I do, that the people in the left lane are probably going to try and turn left. Because there’s no left turn lane (or left turn light, for that matter) these people making the left turn will have to wait for oncoming traffic to pass. Being that it’s Hollywood and there’s usually a fair amount of traffic, this pretty much means they’re waiting for the yellow light before they’ll get a break to make their turn. HOWEVER, we don’t know for sure that they’re turning, because neither of them has signaled a left turn. In most cities, this would probably mean that they’re not turning left and are, in fact, planning on continuing ahead straight. However, this is LA and there is apparently some unwritten rule somewhere that says you are not supposed to switch on your turn indicator until the light turns green, thus ensuring that whoever just pulled up behind you will now have to sit through another light, since there’s no way you’re getting across before the light turns yellow. (A friend of mine once said that ‘turn indicators are only useful for misdirection’. I reject him totally, but I think there are a lot of people out there that share that opinion. And they’re all trying to make left turns in front of me, damnit!)
Another problem I have is with the whole concept of “right of way”. The way right of way was explained to me (after countless traffic school sessions when I used to get caught speeding all the time) is that if you have the right of way (say you're coming towards me and I’m making a left turn) then I must yield the right of way to you. You don’t get to insist on that right of way—in fact there’s no way you CAN insist on it. I must yield it to you.
Apparently, no one ever made this clear to anybody else on the road or, more annoyingly, on the sidewalks here in LA. Everybody seems to be convinced that, because they’ve got the right of way, they’re somehow protected from any kind of accident—after all, I’ve GOT to stop… they’ve got Right Of Way! It’s like they’re convinced it’s some kind of magic power that will protect them from harm. This is most apparent in the blissfully unaware attitude of pedestrians in my neighborhood. Daily, I watch people walk up to an intersection and, without glancing right or left, without pausing to make sure that the car that’s coming is actually going to slow down for them, step off the curb and cross the street, secure in the knowledge that they’ve got Right Of Way! (And don’t even get me started on what they’re like in parking lots!) You’d think that some sense of self-preservation would make them stop and think, “Maybe I should make sure that guy actually sees me and is stopping before I cross the street”. But noooo… no need to do that! “I’ve got Right of Way!” One of these days, one of these idiots is going to step off the curb and get plowed over by someone that wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize that this idiot pedestrian had Right of Way.
And finally, why is it that, invariably, the loser ahead of me that’s going 5 miles an hour slower than anyone else on the road will blissfully cruise through that stale yellow light, while I’m stuck sitting at the red? Sometimes, he’ll even speed up a little to make it through that yellow light, which just adds insult to injury because all he had to do was go a little faster and we’d have both made it through the damn light!
Damn, I hate LA drivers
Ah, where to start, that’s the question! Since I’ve brought up the subject, I figured I might as well sound off about some of the things that bug me. The biggest problem with LA drivers is the combination of balls-out arrogance and mind numbing stupidity. Put those together and you’ve got a hell of a combo.
The ones that annoy me the most have got to be the ones that I see as suffering from "center-of-the-universe" syndrome (CotU for short). These a-holes are the ones that are convinced that they ARE the center of the universe and that the rest of us are just petty annoyances and obstacles between them and their destination. They’re the clowns using the right turn lane at stop lights as a passing lane (a personal favorite of mine—I’ve raced people that are pulling this stunt to make sure they don’t get ahead of me, just because it annoys me so much. I know, juvenile, but what can I say). They’re the same people that think that “no left turn”, “no parking between 4 pm & 7 pm”, “yield” and “no stopping anytime” signs apply to everyone BUT them. And they’re the same people that will pull into traffic, block several lanes to make a left turn, and thus force everyone in those blocked lanes to wait for the same break in oncoming traffic that this jerk is waiting for, simply because he (or she—CotU knows no gender) didn’t want to take the time to wait for a break (or, god forbid, look for a different way to get across the street!).
Ranking right up there with “center of the universe” guy is the clown living on his cell phone. I don’t want to hear anything about how it’s essential to keep in touch, how studies have shown this, that or the other thing… it’s all BS. I have a cell phone. I’ve used it in my car. I also have a headset and, when I get in the car, I take a few seconds, plug the phone into the headset, put the earpiece in my ear and then, surprise, surprise, I’m able to carry on conversations without having to hold a phone the whole time. It strikes me as painfully obvious that, if you’re driving along, holding a phone to your ear, you’re less able to do things like pay attention to what’s next to you, pay attention to what’s behind you, look in your rearview mirror or any of the myriad other things you need to do while driving. (The whole “cell phone use hasn’t been proven to affect driving” is just so much crap, right up there with the tobacco companies denying for decades that cigarette smoking caused cancer.) Chances are good that the clown ahead of me that can’t stay in his lane, makes erratic lane changes, speeds up and slows down without any rhyme or reason will turn out to be the idiot with a cell phone in his hand.
These are the two biggest offenders, but there are a few other, smaller things that bug me, that may be things I’m more aware of than other people (they’re my pet peeves of the road, I guess you could say).
For instance, what is it about LA drivers that make them incapable of signaling a left turn before the light changes? I live in an older neighborhood and there are lots of streets that don’t have a specified left turn lane at stoplights. What happens with annoying regularity is I’ll pull up to one of these lights and there will be several cars in the right lane and only one or two in the left lane. The reason all these cars are in the right lane is because they know, as I do, that the people in the left lane are probably going to try and turn left. Because there’s no left turn lane (or left turn light, for that matter) these people making the left turn will have to wait for oncoming traffic to pass. Being that it’s Hollywood and there’s usually a fair amount of traffic, this pretty much means they’re waiting for the yellow light before they’ll get a break to make their turn. HOWEVER, we don’t know for sure that they’re turning, because neither of them has signaled a left turn. In most cities, this would probably mean that they’re not turning left and are, in fact, planning on continuing ahead straight. However, this is LA and there is apparently some unwritten rule somewhere that says you are not supposed to switch on your turn indicator until the light turns green, thus ensuring that whoever just pulled up behind you will now have to sit through another light, since there’s no way you’re getting across before the light turns yellow. (A friend of mine once said that ‘turn indicators are only useful for misdirection’. I reject him totally, but I think there are a lot of people out there that share that opinion. And they’re all trying to make left turns in front of me, damnit!)
Another problem I have is with the whole concept of “right of way”. The way right of way was explained to me (after countless traffic school sessions when I used to get caught speeding all the time) is that if you have the right of way (say you're coming towards me and I’m making a left turn) then I must yield the right of way to you. You don’t get to insist on that right of way—in fact there’s no way you CAN insist on it. I must yield it to you.
Apparently, no one ever made this clear to anybody else on the road or, more annoyingly, on the sidewalks here in LA. Everybody seems to be convinced that, because they’ve got the right of way, they’re somehow protected from any kind of accident—after all, I’ve GOT to stop… they’ve got Right Of Way! It’s like they’re convinced it’s some kind of magic power that will protect them from harm. This is most apparent in the blissfully unaware attitude of pedestrians in my neighborhood. Daily, I watch people walk up to an intersection and, without glancing right or left, without pausing to make sure that the car that’s coming is actually going to slow down for them, step off the curb and cross the street, secure in the knowledge that they’ve got Right Of Way! (And don’t even get me started on what they’re like in parking lots!) You’d think that some sense of self-preservation would make them stop and think, “Maybe I should make sure that guy actually sees me and is stopping before I cross the street”. But noooo… no need to do that! “I’ve got Right of Way!” One of these days, one of these idiots is going to step off the curb and get plowed over by someone that wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize that this idiot pedestrian had Right of Way.
And finally, why is it that, invariably, the loser ahead of me that’s going 5 miles an hour slower than anyone else on the road will blissfully cruise through that stale yellow light, while I’m stuck sitting at the red? Sometimes, he’ll even speed up a little to make it through that yellow light, which just adds insult to injury because all he had to do was go a little faster and we’d have both made it through the damn light!
Damn, I hate LA drivers
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