Friday, July 20, 2007

why i don't miss my car

Thank goodness for the public transportation system in the DC metropolitan area. I might start criticizing it less now that I've regained some perspective.

I've been in California for two days now and the following has happened to me:

  • I ran several errands on Wednesday, requiring the use of a vehicle. I would park the car properly (safely between the two line markers). I would return to the car to find that someone had parked so close to me that I could barely open the driver's door.
  • Someone cut me off only to come to a screeching halt because of the stalled traffic directly in front of us.
  • While traveling at a comfortable speed in the carpool lane (HOV for you East Coasters) during rush hour traffic, I had to come to a screeching halt (nearly hitting the car in front of me) because some foolio decided that he just had to leave the carpool lane that instant and join the stalled traffic in the non-carpool lanes (and he crossed the double yellow lines).
  • I sat in the most random traffic on the 5 at 11:00 a.m. yesterday on the way to San Diego. I'm sorry, but the 11:00 a.m. traffic jam on a Wednesday on a 10 lane freeway is new to me.
I hate driving. Clearly, being a California driver for most of my life has ruined me.

4 comments:

Jilian said...

I do love the way West Coasters travel on 'the 5' and 'the 10' where as East Coasters just take '81' '95' or '66'. Not 'the 81'. Always makes me laugh :)

Anonymous said...

Hey, what about the PCH?

Sorry you got stuck in the traffic! Yeah, that's the one thing bad about Cali. Unless you live in SF (or live and work in downtown San Diego/Hillcrest), you really do need a car.

Y'know, if people drove here the way they do in some other countries, it wouldn't be so frustrating. For example, today I was driving behind a woman in the left lane who it turns out was also applying eyeliner.

an orange county girl said...

jilian--there's some highway in NoVA called the fairfax county parkway and when i first started dating jesse, i called it 'the 7100.' he thought it was the cutest thing.

sunchaser--i can't even apply eyeliner while standing still in front of a mirror! that's crazy!

Jilian said...

I know 'the parkway' well - it's on my route 'home' :)

'the 7100' - that's funny. I never can remember the number when I try to give folks directions.