Los Angeles Drivers, Boo

[Gone in 60]

Ok, since the title of this thread is "Los Angeles Drivers, Boo", I felt it to be the right place to vent about my experience Saturday night. File this under the topic "Just because it's legal to do a thing, doesn't always mean you should do a thing."

My wife accompanied me to the Petersen for my shift, which she sometimes does, so that she can catch up on medical stuff (charting, she calls it), while I give tours. Afterwards, we have the afternoon and evening to do fun things in the area, and after we had lots of fun strolling around the West Side of LA to search for an elusive bakery she had wanted to find, we found ourselves travelling home on the 405 freeway. Even at 9:00 pm, there is considerable traffic, as that part of the freeway is funneling toward LAX airport. We were in the car pool lane in my car, following a scooter. Not a problem, as the prevailing speed of traffic hovered between 35 and 40 miles per hour. From my years of using them as pit bikes, and after staring at it for 30 minutes, I determined the scooter to by a Kymco 150.

After the airport, the freeway opened up a bit, and as speed increased, the scooter did its best to keep up. It topped out at 54 miles per hour. I could tell it was wound completely out by the tucked position the rider took, as well as it's lack of stability at said speed, causing it to dance from the left to the right edge of the lane repeatedly.

As an opening to the regular lanes of traffic approached, I figured that the scooterist would do the honorable thing and move over to the right side of the freeway. He didn't, possibly terrified by the fact that the rest of the freeway was now going about 75.

The narrow opening to the car pool lane allowed me a very small opportunity to squeeze around the scooterist and get back in front of him. I don't believe that my Fiesta presents a menacing image in anyone's rear view mirror. However, the lifted Chevy DuraMax Bro-Dozer truck that was behind me was most likely less kind to the scooterist now that he was the one breathing on the rear fender of the Kymco, which still refused to move over.

The whole situation disappeared quickly in our mirrors, and I wished him the best of luck.

[pekingduck]

Yikes, a 150cc scooter on the freeway is terrifying even in the far right lane. I once took a new 250 dual-sport on the freeway, entering from a dedicated carpool entrance off the street, and found out it's top speed was only about 60-62 flat out.

It was my regular commute route over 15 years, and it spreads into 2 lanes. Probably the most terrified I've ever been, couldn't move out of the carpool lanes into the 70-75 mph of the regular #1 lane. Had to ride in the median until traffic got jammed up. My error, not anybody else's.

[Gone in 60]

That's a tough spot to be in for sure. If this guy had put a right signal on when the lane opened up, I would have moved out first and blocked the lane for him so he could get out, but he seemed determined to stay on course and speed.

[pekingduck]

That's a tough spot to be in for sure. If this guy had put a right signal on when the lane opened up, I would have moved out first and blocked the lane for him so he could get out, but he seemed determined to stay on course and speed.

That certainly would have been great if he had a clue.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Yikes, a 150cc scooter on the freeway is terrifying even in the far right lane. I once took a new 250 dual-sport on the freeway, entering from a dedicated carpool entrance off the street, and found out it's top speed was only about 60-62 flat out.

It was my regular commute route over 15 years, and it spreads into 2 lanes. Probably the most terrified I've ever been, couldn't move out of the carpool lanes into the 70-75 mph of the regular #1 lane. Had to ride in the median until traffic got jammed up. My error, not anybody else's.

Yeah, 150 cc scooter on freeway is just all wrong.

(+1) regarding the 250 dual-sport. In addition, the steering head would just be too rickety to be safe at 60+ mph.

[Charlie Bravo_imp]

As a SoCal native, I think LA drivers are no worse than, say Dallas or Miami or NY. The worst drivers are in Boston, and they know it. My daughter went to grad school in Cambridge and NY, so I am well-acquainted with Eastern drivers. I grew up with lane splitting/filtering so it is normal for me, and for the rest of the world, too. It does take some care and I've seen the horror vids of splitters getting split by lane changers, but on the whole SoCal drivers take it in stride. I will miss it when we move to TX later this year.

[pekingduck]

"If you drive an expensive car you're probably a jerk" was the title of a CNN article this week on a UNLV study that reinforced what we pretty much already all thought.

LA probably has more Audi/BMW/Mercedes/Porsche/Land Rover/Tesla drivers than anywhere else.

So what conclusion can be reached from those two statements? 'Nuff said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/world/exp...index.html

[LongRanger_imp]

We’ve got ‘em here, too, but they’re of a different sort. It’s perfectly normal to be accelerating up a freeway on-ramp, only to see a car stopped at the top of the ramp with his left turn signal on, waiting for an opening in traffic. “Merging into traffic” is an unknown technique around these parts.

The other type of driver accelerates aggressively up the on-ramp and immediately merges all the way over to the #1 lane (the “fast lane”), even though the other lanes are clear and wide open. Typically it’s an Audi or jacked-up Ford 4x4.

[GoldOxide_imp]

We’ve got ‘em here, too, but they’re of a different sort. It’s perfectly normal to be accelerating up a freeway on-ramp, only to see a car stopped at the top of the ramp with his left turn signal on, waiting for an opening in traffic. “Merging into traffic” is an unknown technique around these parts.

The other type of driver accelerates aggressively up the on-ramp and immediately merges all the way over to the #1 lane (the “fast lane”), even though the other lanes are clear and wide open. Typically it’s an Audi or jacked-up Ford 4x4.

Sometimes it sucks to behind those drivers when that happens.

We’ve got ‘em here, too, but they’re of a different sort. It’s perfectly normal to be accelerating up a freeway on-ramp, only to see a car stopped at the top of the ramp with his left turn signal on, waiting for an opening in traffic. “Merging into traffic” is an unknown technique around these parts.

The other type of driver accelerates aggressively up the on-ramp and immediately merges all the way over to the #1 lane (the “fast lane”), even though the other lanes are clear and wide open. Typically it’s an Audi or jacked-up Ford 4x4.

Yes, I have seen and heard what happens to those drivers as dust and chards of plastic rise up into the air.

[Charlie Bravo_imp]

I learned to ride while leaving abroad. I forgot how much i love lane splitting. Of course, I would share the road with tons of mopeds, cars, trucks, tuk-tuks (google if you don't know, awesome), bicycles, pedestrians, food carts, ox carts, you name it. You learn how to share and split lanes with all of that traffic, and driving in North America is way too easy.

I know what a tuk-tuk is. I learned to ride in Thailand on a Honda 350 while in the army in 1969.