Los Angelenos Love To Complain About Traffic But Traffic Is So Bad Because They Absolutely Suck At Driving

Los Angeles traffic is consistently, by far, the worst in existence. I’ve driven in about 2/3 of these United States so I figure I’ve driven in enough cities to consider myself fairly knowledgable here. Plus I’m on Los Angeles roads for several hours a day and that’s not because I’m traveling great distances but simply because traffic. It gives one a lot of time to wonder about why. What I’ve observed is that the problem is not that there are too many cars on the road, although that is a factor. But major cities all have too many cars on the road. The problem is you, Los Angelenos, all have the shittiest driving habits it existence.

You’re operating a several thousand pound metal box. Fucking pay attention!

You’re all too slow. And no, I’m not suggesting anyone should be speeding because, believe me, that’s not an issue here. LA drivers haven’t met any speed limit they couldn’t immediately render unnecessary. I’m saying in general. You’re slow to react, slow to hit the gas, slow to hit the brakes, slow to pop the turn signal, slow to plan ahead, slow to anticipate… And maybe that sounds good to you. Slower is safer, right ? Only if it’s thoughtfully done. If there’s one word that describes LA drivers, it’s thoughtless. You all just kind of do things. There’s almost no consideration that you’re sharing a road with other drivers who are trying to reach a destination in a safe, timely fashion.

Everything you is slow because your focus is on everything but driving while you’re driving. Yet you’ll be first to complain about how long it takes to get anywhere in LA. It can only lead me to the conclusion that large swaths of the Los Angeles population physically become stupider when they get behind the wheel because they can’t seem to put it together that doing an activity slower means it takes longer.

So how do we make things faster? Start by getting up to or in the general ball park of the speed limit. You all complain about rush hour and the bumper to bumper traffic but there’s never really bumper to bumper anything here. You all have your 18 car-lengths worth of space in front of you. If you are doing this and driving below the speed limit YOU ARE CAUSING TRAFFIC. If you’re going too slow it means you’re making everyone else go too slow. And when everyone is going too slow, we get TRAFFIC. You’re now causing a chain reaction for miles behind you. One person doing this is a nuisance. Half of the people on the road doing this is LA traffic.

It’s really not all about you, you self-absorded ass.

Driving is supposed to be a somewhat collaborative process. Everything works just fine if everyone kind of looks out for each other. It also helps if everyone is generally on the same page that the point of getting in a car is to reach a destination in less time than it would take to walk. The driving culture here is so full of bad habits that I’m not sure if any of you even know what a car is, let alone what it’s for.

If you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, no one else can plan what they need to do.  Again, there are other people on the road– especially behind you. When you’re fucking around it affects everyone. Being mindful of the other drivers around you is a fundamental rule that just sort of informs basic driving ettiqutte everywhere else in the country. In self-worshipping Los Angeles it’s either never considered or actively disregarded because other people don’t matter. 

It may be strange to consider but people are like this even when stopped at red-lights. For some fucked up incomprehsible reason, people will leave several car lengths of space in front of them. I promise you, there is no danger of having to stop quickly when you’re already stopped so I really have no earthly idea why this happens. It certainly ignores the people behind you. People that, for instance, might be trying to get into the open turn lane and would very much appreciate you actually pulling up to the stopped vehicle in front of you so that they might get around you.  

It’s not your fucking living room and if you consider it your office, you’re a tool.

The truth is people do not keep that big buffer of space in front of them out of an abundance of caution. It’s to free you up for looking at your fucking screen. Because everyone knows, if you just look up every few seconds you’ll be fine– that cushion of space will surely give you enough time to stop. Distracted driving is more dangerous than drunk driving, yet we have an entire population of people who are just positive they and they alone have mastered driving without the use of sight. Why shouldn’t you take this time to catch up on texts and emails and Netflix series’?

I’ll look around me when traffic stops and it’s no exaggeration to say that about 70 percent of the people are looking at a screen. They’re all making the same excuse– we’re not going anywhere– and yet it’s because of the sheer numbers of people doing it that they’re not going anywhere. It really is the Los Angeles attitude in microcosm— no self awareness, no acknowledgement of others, your current needs outweigh everything including my safety, public spaces/services were created for you only…

Which is why I encounter this buffoonery multiple times every day:

You guys are experts at hanging out in the blindspot with nothing in front of you. Since, in the above example, I’m switching lanes for a reason and not just for kicks, I’m going to have to do it whether you assist me or not. So instead of benefitting from some helpful cooperation, I now have to slow way down to get in behind you (if the person behind you happens to notice me trying to switch lanes as well) which means I’m now blocking traffic in my lane.

Another thing about switching lanes, if you don’t need to, don’t. It’s a multiple daily occurance to have open road ahead of me only to encounter someone switching into my lane but then continuing at the same pokey clip they were before and impeding my progress. Why did you need to switch lanes? You’re not passing, you’re not turning.

To keep traffic moving smoothly you have to be paying attention, watching what other drivers are doing, anticipating what they might do or need to do next– including those behind you, you have rearview mirrors for a reason. Are there freeway on-ramps around that people might need to switch lanes to access? Did a bus just stop in the right lane and now people are going to be trying to go around? Does that person ahead look like they’re trying to get over so they can make a turn of some kind? Varying your speed (maybe even going a little over the speed limit, which if used occasionly IS PERFECTLY OKAY) to help make room for others to maneuver is part of being a good, attentive driver and keeping traffic moving. It’s what they do everywhere else in the country. To not do it never occurs to them because it just seems like the normal thing to do.

The freeways in LA will never be a functioning thing because you’re all a bunch of fucking children.

This failure to consider anything outside of one’s own head is why the freeways out here will always be something that is broken and will just never be right. There’s not much to say other than if you can’t grasp the concept of the passing lane there’s no hope for you.

The left most lane (non-carpool lane if you’re in Los Angeles) in every state in the country IS FOR PASSING. Not cruising, not fucking off and doing what the hell ever you want. If you’re in the left most non-carpool lane and you’re not passing anyone, and worse, people are now passing you on the right, you’re an asshole and causing dangerous driving conditions because now you’re forcing everyone to weave in and out of traffic to get where they need to be and creating chaos.

SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT. This is the rule everywhere including California. It’s in the California Drivers’ Handbook– that book of rules and laws you needed to know to get your license. Needless to say, there’s no excuse for not knowing these things.

Having said that, even if you are in fact in the right most lane, you are still on the freeway. If you want functional freeway traffic, you need to at least be going the speed limit. I understand you are getting off at the next exit. That doesn’t change the fact that you are still on the freeway until you are not on the freeway. 

Why is it so fucking hard to use turn signals?

There’s no excuse for not using turn signals. Ever. If you are too lazy to lift your arm and activate a lever that’s right there on the steering column before you, you should crawl into a hole and bury yourself.

All over the country this great tool is used for giving your fellow drivers a heads up that you are planning to switch lanes or turn soon and therefore your sudden decelerating won’t be a surprise. Surprising other drivers is not a good thing to do. 

When a turn signal is used by LA drivers, I get the distinct impression that the person signaling knows how to turn the signal on but he doesn’t know why. A general rule– if you’re already stopped when you flip the signal on, you’re too late. To be clear, the signal is a heads up warning that you are planning to turn in the near future so that your fellow drivers can safely navigate around you. According to that California Driver’s Handbook that of course you all read, it’s supposed to be done 100 feet from where you’re turning. If you are actually in the process of turning, you no longer need to turn the signal on to tell me you want to turn because it’s now very obvious.

Simply using a turn signal can save so much trouble for your fellow drivers. For instance, when I’ve been sitting at a stop sign waiting for you to pass so I can turn into the intersection only to have you turn into where I’m coming out of and I could’ve actually made my turn thirty seconds ago, you’ve made a dick move. Another dick move is when I’m behind you in the left most lane when the light turns green—and only then do you signal that you’re turning left and now I’m stuck at the light because none of the oncoming traffic is going to let you make your turn while they have a green and I can’t go around you because there’s not a chance in hell anyone is going to let me into their lane for the same reason.

Traffic lights are a huge problem and it’s not necessarily your fault. But for fucksake…

Traffic lights and the use of traffic lights are perhaps the most insidious problem for LA drivers. While stoplights are a necessary nuisance in any city, Los Angeles takes the idea far beyond nuisance into some Byzantine farce. There are so many stoplights littered throughout the city that they constantly cancel each other out.

The commute from my current residence to my current place of work is 9.6 miles. Along that 9.6 mile trip I have to go through 49 stop lights and that’s after refining my route to avoid as many lights as possible. That’s a little over 5 per mile. Say the average red light lasts about a minute (mainly because there’s a remarkable chance you won’t get through on the first go around and I’ll get into that), if I manage to only get stopped at half the lights on my journey, that’s about twenty-five minutes added to my commute. I’m guessing you could eliminate a third of the city’s stop lights and be perfectly fine. Every little piddily-dink neighborhood side street doesn’t need it’s own light.

That being said, you know what might make the traffic light problem less a problem? Actually going when the light turns green. Because that’s what a green light means. It means “go”. Not wait a few seconds and go. Not “go when you feel like it” or “go as soon as you’re done with that text message” or when you’re finished arranging the items on the passenger seat. And once you’ve gone, get up to the damn speed limit as quickly as is reasonably possible. An LA green light sets off a competition to see who can accelerate the slowest and still be in motion. It’s as if everyone chose one of the fat Mario Kart drivers. People seriously sit at green lights like the light turning green was an event they just weren’t prepared to encounter.

I’ve heard the excuse that no one goes right away because people run red lights in Los Angeles all the time. Yet I’ve only seen this happen a handful of times while living here, no more than any other city. Even if someone did run the light, it shouldn’t be a problem because you’re supposed to be paying attention at all times while driving a motor vehicle, which includes sitting at red lights. In doing so, you can watch the oncoming traffic and anticipate when someone is going to run the light. If so, wait. If not, go.

And then get up to to the speed limit because the person behind you can’t go until you go. And the person behind them can’t go until they go and so on. I understand you’re thinking “What? There’s just another red light ahead. What’s the big hurry?” but for the people behind you, there is a green light and they can’t go through it because only you exist.

In conclusion…

The fact that the way I drive is considered aggressive out here when it’s simply called driving everywhere else is pretty telling. So how about we just say LA driving is passive, which means that you kind of let the driving take care of itself. There is a minimum of thought and effort put into the actual process because your attention is elsewhere. Making calls, responding to emails or texts, putting on your make up, surfing the web, watching TV, etc. while driving is not only fucking stupid and dangerous but if you were actively involved in driving, you’d be seeing the very simple ways your commute could be quicker and more efficient. If you want to continue being an idiot on the road, I guess it’s a free country. But don’t complain about traffic because you’re the reason there’s traffic.