Driving in California is very different than driving in Texas. In Texas I would get in my car, back out of the driveway, drive at 80 miles per hour to where ever I was going, park in the parking lot and I was done.
In California there are two separate problems. The first is our hill. We live on an off-shoot of a really long, no-outlet road (for some reason it doesn’t say ‘dead end’, so be it). The road is clearly labeled at the bottom of the hill “NO OUTLET” but people seem to think they know better.
It’s a very long road, and there are probably about 2,000 people that live on the hill (we’re kind of squished in like nesting birds on a cliff). There are some circles and off-shoots (like we live on) but it all comes out only one way at the bottom of the hill. The main problem is that it’s a single lane road in most parts. And where the road is wide enough to have cars pass, people park in the street. And to top it off, the road is kinda crummy and steep and there is no sidewalk but tons of hikers that short cut up to the ridge from our street. So to even get to the main street takes at least 10 minutes. Longer if you get stuck behind someone who is lost or a garbage truck.
Due to the nature of the road you are only supposed to go 15 miles per hour, it would be hard to go much faster than that. And while it’s a single lane road, people travel up and down it, so you frequently have to pull over (suddenly) behind parked cars to let people by you, or back up because some stupid driver isn’t letting you go by. Plus all the blind switch-backs make it kind of exciting in a ‘I wonder if I’ll crash today?’ kind of way. And my favorite, on our off-shoot street there is one turn that goes parallel to the hill with houses and up-hillside to one side, and a crumbling street that drops off the steep hillside on the other. Oh, and it’s two cars wide at this point, but people park blocking one lane- forcing you to drive super close to the cliff edge while trying not to scratch their car on the other side.
SO, once you get down the hill you are on a real road. Congratulations. You still can’t go faster than 20 or 25 miles per hour anywhere, unless you get on the freeway but those are usually full of traffic so you’d be lucky to go 30 mph.
My morning commute right now is taking Justin to school (because there is no parking downtown and we refuse to pay $10 a day for parking in a garage). After we get down the hill in the morning, we then have to wind around Cal campus with it’s plethora of pedestrians. Walking it great, I have nothing against walking places. But if you are a pedestrian you have the responsibility to keep yourself safe. Cars, while they do have to yield to you in cross walks, CANNOT SEE YOU if you step out from between cars (parked up and down both sides of the street all the way, everywhere). I have enough to do watching the road, which consists of weird traffic circles with crosswalks, oddly placed and moveable stop signs depending on construction, construction; it’s workers and large machines and the potholes the size of my car they haven’t fixed yet. As well as making sure people don’t open their street parked car doors into traffic, avoiding buses merging back into the main road, and the stop lights that are so discrete you have to know they are there. So, no, mister or misses pedestrian don’t give me a dirty look if I have to screech to a halt so I don’t hit you when you aren’t using a cross walk.
This is when Ludacris “Move bitch, get out the way” starts playing in my head. I considered making it my car horn because yelling out the car window for them to “use a cross walk” makes Justin uncomfortable.
