Los Angeles Drivers, Boo

[Gone in 60]

562loose, what surprises me is, as a rider in downtown LA, that his moved surprised you in the least. The whole 5/110/101 zone is a vacuum of any driving brain power whatsoever. Any time I'm in that tunnel on the 110 north going to 5 north, I'm assuming that every car within a two mile radius suddenly has to be in front of me, and that the winding two-lane extended ramp after the initial turn will bewilder any driver in close proximity.

On my morning commute, I exit the 405 in Santa Ana at Harbor Blvd. Harbor is a main boulevard, and is at the end of a "feeder" ramp that has two earlier exits before the ramp ends at Harbor. Each morning, I assume that every driver ahead of me is confused, and am never disappointed when two cars cut over at the last second because they're on auto brain pilot, thinking that Harbor is the first turn-off on the ramp. (I take the second exit on the ramp, Susan St., or as I like to call it, "Ex Wife St.")

Earthquakes? Heck, 1994 didn't take us down. Just made the commutes crappier than normal for a few months. Imagine that but with no Waze.

Now that they've done the bizzaro exterior remodel of the Petersen Museum, making it the current most controversial piece of L.A. architecture (the concept is "what if a building were put in a wind tunnel"), I tell my tour guests "Mark my words, the next L.A. earthquake disaster film you see, this place will burst into flames and collapse first. The Columbia Records building has always been the first one that blows up, but it's had its day."

 

[pekingduck]

If the Petersen Automotive Museum were consumed in an earthquake, how could you tell? Would the walls become flat and vertical?



LA is not the only place full of bad drivers with a sense of entitlement - we have a particular breed that surpasses all as the worst of the worst - worse than divorce lawyers or Hollywood agents, none but the feared and dreaded entertainment industry attorney.

You'll find him mostly on the Westside, phone or phones in hand, slithering through traffic like the snake he is, in his Jaguar FU-type or Land Rover Aloof. All black with limousine tint windows of course, lest some ray of sunshine peak in. You never hear him coming, but even on the hottest day, you'll feel the hairs on the back stand up and your blood will run cold.

He'll be heading to a lunch date at an exclusive new restaurant that doesn't have a name, just an address and a valet. You could be stopped at a light, he'll run you over, slowing down only enough to drop his lawyer's card next to your crumpled body.

And sure, it's all his fault, but not only will you never work in this town again, you'll never get a table at any restaurant, you'll only be able to stream reruns of Andy Griffith, and taco trucks will suddenly close their windows when you get to the front of the line.

 

[Gone in 60]

AAAGGGHHH NO, not the entertainment lawyer! I usually see him on the hiking trails in Temescal Canyon. He'll be loudly telling his Tinder date about how he just got xxx actor signed with yyy producer to be in yyy's next production. Oh, and he just sued zzz for non-fulfillment of contract.

He's talking loudly because he has to get the hike wrapped up within the next 30 minutes and she's having a hard time keeping up. His McLaren is ready to be picked up at the dealer, and he needs to get it before he heads to a meeting with bbb. The dealer loaner is just an S-Class, and he wouldn't be caught dead in something like that.

Thank gawd for headphones.

 

[pekingduck]

Wait a minute - was it a gold McLaren with a personalized plate that says HUBRIS?

People think we're kidding, but we're not......sadly.......

 

[Bazbro_imp]

:rofl:

I "almost" follow this - very funny, but not if you have to live alongside them.

Every country has "cringe makers".
"The Englishman Abroad" is my hate...
There are several types, but apart from the quiet, decent majority, we have "18-30 Man". He's never spotted during the day - only appearing about 5pm, rumpled, baggy-eyed and looking for DRINK... By 11pm he's sobered up enough to do his thing in the club, looking for some poor, dopey female he can salivate over.

Then there's the loudmouthed "Loadsamoney Plumber" type, with family in tow - equally loud, big, blonde, buxom wife, with a mouth as bad as her husband's but with a few extra choice swear words, and kids that can only be summed up by the word "obnoxious".

Then the "Hooray Henrys" who "made a lot of cash in the City" and are desperate to flaunt it in the most crass and offensive way possible.

And so it goes on...

"People watching" is a good hobby!!

 

[Cormanus]

pekingduck, that was a very funny post. I had to work way too hard not to spray a mouthful of pizza all over the dining room.

 

[Gone in 60]

Yes, every society has their cringe worthy elements, and as cool and suave as I think I am, I’m sure someone thinks that way about me.

I set up trade show displays occasionaly, and when I travel to England for the Autosport show, I’m sure I come off like a typical American redneck.

“Hey, there’s the same car I got, but the bumpers look funny and the steering wheel ain’t on the right side. And how come your trucks have so many dang wheels? And how come your electric plugs are so big?”

I took a break from the show last year when I learned that the British Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham was a short distance from the convention center. I walked there, basically as-the-crow-flies. In doing so, I crossed a major highway on foot, which apparently is frowned upon. Heck, it didn’t have big old guard rails around it like we got on freeways here in America, so how was I supposed to know.

I asked the hotel clerk that I was looking for a package addressed to “Mr. Anderson.” He gathered all of his friends and asked me to say “Mr. Anderson” repeatedly because I sounded like “The guy from the Matrix”.

As a side note about the Petersen museum, that I find sort of funny - since they did that exterior skin of stainless steel ribbons illustrated here previously, they have posted security guards outside on the sidewalk. They learned that basically they built a huge steel ladder around the building, and the guards are there to keep people from climbing it.

 

[Bazbro_imp]

:rofl:

 

[GoldOxide_imp]

Yes, every society has their cringe worthy elements, and as cool and suave as I think I am, I’m sure someone thinks that way about me.

I set up trade show displays occasionaly, and when I travel to England for the Autosport show, I’m sure I come off like a typical American redneck.

“Hey, there’s the same car I got, but the bumpers look funny and the steering wheel ain’t on the right side. And how come your trucks have so many dang wheels? And how come your electric plugs are so big?”

I took a break from the show last year when I learned that the British Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham was a short distance from the convention center. I walked there, basically as-the-crow-flies. In doing so, I crossed a major highway on foot, which apparently is frowned upon. Heck, it didn’t have big old guard rails around it like we got on freeways here in America, so how was I supposed to know.

I asked the hotel clerk that I was looking for a package addressed to “Mr. Anderson.” He gathered all of his friends and asked me to say “Mr. Anderson” repeatedly because I sounded like “The guy from the Matrix”.

As a side note about the Petersen museum, that I find sort of funny - since they did that exterior skin of stainless steel ribbons illustrated here previously, they have posted security guards outside on the sidewalk. They learned that basically they built a huge steel ladder around the building, and the guards are there to keep people from climbing it.

They must have seen you as The One, neO.

 

[Gone in 60]

I still remember their cockney accents... “Ok, this time say “Good Morning Mr. Anderson.””

My boss, Mr. Anderson, reminded me that over there, I was the one with the accent.

 

[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/expensive-car-drivers-study-scli-scn-intl/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.