Driving Miss Daisy

So driving in California is *interesting* and very different from home!

Apart from the obvious driving on the other side of the road, both LA and Huntington Beach have major roads running up and down them and across them in the famous grid format.

 When I say major, I mean the size of the North Circular, three lanes in each direction, with traffic lights at every junction, very busy kinda major. This can be pretty intimidating! Hooning up to the shops, basically means going  on the A406, not a little 'one lane in each direction' kind of a road that is more normal at home. These smaller roads do exist, but you wouldn't really drive up them unless you lived up one!

Everyone travels up, down and across these major roads (when they aren't on the Freeway!)
The main reason I can see why LA surface roads are so clogged up is that everyone does approx 40 miles per hour for quarter of a mile and then has to stop for a traffic light for about 2 minutes. They need to get some roundabouts in this town, and certainly take out some of the traffic lights. (Who can I write to about this?!)

Of course the freeways are normally 6 lanes in each direction. Exit roads (off ramps) are sometimes just turn off roads (like most of our motorways) where you indicate and move over and either go up or down to the surface roads. These are fine. But sometimes the freeway lane just turns into the off ramp. There is not often a huge amount of warning of this. And some off ramps (and this is the best bet) cross over on ramps!!! So as you are trying to get off the freeway, you have other people trying to drive into you (well onto the freeway, but it feels like they are trying to drive into you!!!)

Despite there being advertising and signs for shops every 5cm in this part of California, traffic signs are far less frequent which makes it difficult for us johnny foreigners trying to negotiate massively busy roads...

Driving can be a challenge to say the least particularly on the freeway. I successfully negotiated getting onto the 405 the other day and was very pleased to be heading off to Orange County. I stayed in the right hand lane, and within quarter of a mile of getting on the freeway, it had filtered me off onto another freeway (the 10!!!)   I laughed a little, came off at the next junction and manage to get back on the 405 within 10 minutes. (The grid system is great for finding your way back to whence you once came...)

Indicating is not really used much in Southern California. When it is used, it is more a 'I am pulling out right now and I am telling you I am' rather than an 'I would like to move into your lane, and I am indicating so that you hopefully let me in at your earliest convenience' Basically it's just all a bit more American...Interestingly many cars also have red indicators. So you think someone is putting on their brakes, and then look more closely and they are actually turning.

There are these insane stop signs at cross roads, where the first person to arrive is the first person to leave. It gets really interesting if all 4 of you rock up at practically the same time, and everyone edges forward wondering who should actually go first! If they just popped a roundabout in, it would really help traffic move more quickly, or perhaps get rid of some of the these thousands of 4 way stop signs.

Slowly I am getting used to it, and The OC is much more pleasant to drive around than LA. Partially because I choose to get on the Pacific Coast Highway as much as possible. Having the Pacific Ocean in your eyeline does wonders for the soul! It's costing me a lot more in gas, but it's gotta be worth it right?! I am also more cautious than I am at home (and those who have driven with me in London probably see this as a good thing...) hence the 'Driving Miss Daisy' title of this post.

So sat nav is definitely the order of the day, as constantly referring to maps at traffic lights isn't helping me on the uber wide roads!

And the *REAL* reason why the space shuttle is moving so slowly through LA as it makes its way to the Space Center? It's those damn stop signs...