Sunday, April 09, 2006
Driving on the West Coast
I live, more or less, on the West coast. I know, Nevada isn’t quite beach property, but even Mark Twain, in his travelogue Roughing It, called it the West Coast, and in a lot of ways he’s right. In the Valley of Meadows it’s really a lot like Los Angeles except that it’s a whole lot dryer, and there are a lot fewer cars per square inch, or maybe square foot. Culturally, though you might not believe it if you didn’t live here, we’re a lot like Southern California. This extends to the style of driving, even, which is a step toward my point in writing this.
Californians, like everyone in a tourist area, like to complain about drivers from somewhere else and how they mess things up. It’s certainly true in the Rocky Mountains that people from places like Kansas have no earthly idea how to go up and down steep grades. It’s as if there are no gear shift levers in their cars, but by gar they’re not slow drivers so they stay in that left lane, going slower and slower and frustrating the heck out of those who know about down shifting. But, oddly enough, if you mention Nevada drivers, they’ll say, “Oh, they’re okay. They’re not like the other states.” Which I mention to illustrate my point: that we in Southern Nevada are honorary citizens of Southern California. Since I first drove in Southern California sometime in the nineties I’ve been struck by a couple of things about drivers here. One is that they tend to drive faster than drivers from most places, excepting Arizona of course. Nobody else drives as fast as the people in Phoenix and lives to tell the tale. But what I’m saying is that West Coast drivers are perceived by the rest of the country as being hell-bent for trouble, driving so fast as we do all the time. And, there may be some truth in that argument, but even allowing for that, I am going on record, having driven in at least forty states and one District plus even Mexico and France and Canada, that the drivers in Southern California are both more courteous and more skilled than any other drivers I’ve witnessed.
Consider, with the traffic in Los Angeles, and the speeds (0 to 80 to 0 in sixty seconds or less), if they weren’t skilled drivers they’d be dead. In fact, the Southern California traffic tends to weed out those who can’t handle driving in traffic pretty quickly, as it is ruthless in its blind pursuit of getting somewhere. Anywhere but here, or so it seems. And, also as a matter of survival, drivers here tend to be more courteous by nature, in spite of the fact that they’re going like bats out of hell, or maybe Autobahners on I-15 between Vegas and LA. (You know, the road where the movie stars get picked up going 120. I think I’ve been passed by a few, in fact.) I witnessed a good example of this on a trip last week to Boulder Colorado to hear my daughter’s Senior Recital. (She’s damn good, but that’s for another time.) In Colorado especially it is common for someone to be driving along in the fast lane and have someone from the slower lane to the right pull out suddenly, making one slam the brakes, who will then go right on being ten to twenty miles per hour slower than was the approaching vehicle. Feeling self-righteous because you obey the speed limit at all times and don’t like those “speeding idiots?” Well, don’t, because that’s the sort of aggressive driving that causes fatalities, and also the sort of aggressive driving that is relatively rare in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I’d forgotten to watch out for it, even, and had a couple of close calls before I remembered to remember all of the time. Regardless of the speed limit (and I don’t much speed when I’m out of state, as I was in Colorado) that behavior is discourteous and dangerous, not to mention probably terribly unskilled.
Las Vegas has a bad accident rate, but it isn’t the general driving style causing it. It is, to put it simply, that this is a 24/7/365 party town full of strangers who don’t know the roads, which is as good a recipe for disaster on the highways as I could think of. But for those who live here, it only makes us more alert, responsive, and oddly enough, responsible drivers. Rather than mere speed, which back East is the Big Bugaboo of Traffic, different speeds and irresponsible behavior are what cause accidents in most cases. In fact, in the West the accident rate on rural Interstates went down when the speed limit was raised, because now those who must drive the speed limit are going the same speed as those who would rather drive fast. I know this won’t get through to places like Ohio, Michigan, California and other places with those idiotic slower speed limits for trucks, but it’s true. Fortunately, in the case of California, I’ve never seen that lower speed enforced, which segues into a bit of a discussion of traffic flow, starting now.
Traffic flow is a flow just like water flows through a pipe. That was figured out in the 1930s, but apparently most people still don’t realize it. This is why those slow trucks are a problem: because they in effect become clogs in the pipeline. Just as in a flow of liquid, various particles (cars) will pop out to get past the clog (the truck) causing a dangerous situation with swerving in and out being the norm instead of the rare exception. In a similar vein, mistimed traffic lights are clogs in the drain as well, and any former small town now in a metro area that still insists on timing the lights to “make people slow down” should be fined heavily. I’ve made jokes about the inconsideration of stopping to let somebody out of a side street, but when the traffic is really heavy such an action can have an effect that slows traffic for hours. I’m not saying don’t let people out, just that you should consider what your actions are doing to the overall flow of things before you make up your mind whether to do it. I’m cursed with the ability to see traffic flow, so I find it frustrating when people work against it. Some of the problem is situational, for instance in a small town it’s courteous to let your neighbors meet and talk in the middle of the street, because what the heck, you may want to do it next. In a big city it’s courteous to use the street as quickly as you can, because a lot of other people need to use it also.
Which circles back around to why so many people may think that West Coast drivers are discourteous and driving too fast. Southern California has thirty million residents, and even more cars. That makes it one heckuva big city, and big city rules of etiquette apply here more than in any other place besides the Boston to Washington corridor. As our population increases (and it will you know) more and more of the country will be in the same situation. Like it or not, California is a harbinger once again. The good news is that it actually works quite well. The bad news is that people from smaller towns all think you’re a maniac.
The maniacs.
Californians, like everyone in a tourist area, like to complain about drivers from somewhere else and how they mess things up. It’s certainly true in the Rocky Mountains that people from places like Kansas have no earthly idea how to go up and down steep grades. It’s as if there are no gear shift levers in their cars, but by gar they’re not slow drivers so they stay in that left lane, going slower and slower and frustrating the heck out of those who know about down shifting. But, oddly enough, if you mention Nevada drivers, they’ll say, “Oh, they’re okay. They’re not like the other states.” Which I mention to illustrate my point: that we in Southern Nevada are honorary citizens of Southern California. Since I first drove in Southern California sometime in the nineties I’ve been struck by a couple of things about drivers here. One is that they tend to drive faster than drivers from most places, excepting Arizona of course. Nobody else drives as fast as the people in Phoenix and lives to tell the tale. But what I’m saying is that West Coast drivers are perceived by the rest of the country as being hell-bent for trouble, driving so fast as we do all the time. And, there may be some truth in that argument, but even allowing for that, I am going on record, having driven in at least forty states and one District plus even Mexico and France and Canada, that the drivers in Southern California are both more courteous and more skilled than any other drivers I’ve witnessed.
Consider, with the traffic in Los Angeles, and the speeds (0 to 80 to 0 in sixty seconds or less), if they weren’t skilled drivers they’d be dead. In fact, the Southern California traffic tends to weed out those who can’t handle driving in traffic pretty quickly, as it is ruthless in its blind pursuit of getting somewhere. Anywhere but here, or so it seems. And, also as a matter of survival, drivers here tend to be more courteous by nature, in spite of the fact that they’re going like bats out of hell, or maybe Autobahners on I-15 between Vegas and LA. (You know, the road where the movie stars get picked up going 120. I think I’ve been passed by a few, in fact.) I witnessed a good example of this on a trip last week to Boulder Colorado to hear my daughter’s Senior Recital. (She’s damn good, but that’s for another time.) In Colorado especially it is common for someone to be driving along in the fast lane and have someone from the slower lane to the right pull out suddenly, making one slam the brakes, who will then go right on being ten to twenty miles per hour slower than was the approaching vehicle. Feeling self-righteous because you obey the speed limit at all times and don’t like those “speeding idiots?” Well, don’t, because that’s the sort of aggressive driving that causes fatalities, and also the sort of aggressive driving that is relatively rare in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I’d forgotten to watch out for it, even, and had a couple of close calls before I remembered to remember all of the time. Regardless of the speed limit (and I don’t much speed when I’m out of state, as I was in Colorado) that behavior is discourteous and dangerous, not to mention probably terribly unskilled.
Las Vegas has a bad accident rate, but it isn’t the general driving style causing it. It is, to put it simply, that this is a 24/7/365 party town full of strangers who don’t know the roads, which is as good a recipe for disaster on the highways as I could think of. But for those who live here, it only makes us more alert, responsive, and oddly enough, responsible drivers. Rather than mere speed, which back East is the Big Bugaboo of Traffic, different speeds and irresponsible behavior are what cause accidents in most cases. In fact, in the West the accident rate on rural Interstates went down when the speed limit was raised, because now those who must drive the speed limit are going the same speed as those who would rather drive fast. I know this won’t get through to places like Ohio, Michigan, California and other places with those idiotic slower speed limits for trucks, but it’s true. Fortunately, in the case of California, I’ve never seen that lower speed enforced, which segues into a bit of a discussion of traffic flow, starting now.
Traffic flow is a flow just like water flows through a pipe. That was figured out in the 1930s, but apparently most people still don’t realize it. This is why those slow trucks are a problem: because they in effect become clogs in the pipeline. Just as in a flow of liquid, various particles (cars) will pop out to get past the clog (the truck) causing a dangerous situation with swerving in and out being the norm instead of the rare exception. In a similar vein, mistimed traffic lights are clogs in the drain as well, and any former small town now in a metro area that still insists on timing the lights to “make people slow down” should be fined heavily. I’ve made jokes about the inconsideration of stopping to let somebody out of a side street, but when the traffic is really heavy such an action can have an effect that slows traffic for hours. I’m not saying don’t let people out, just that you should consider what your actions are doing to the overall flow of things before you make up your mind whether to do it. I’m cursed with the ability to see traffic flow, so I find it frustrating when people work against it. Some of the problem is situational, for instance in a small town it’s courteous to let your neighbors meet and talk in the middle of the street, because what the heck, you may want to do it next. In a big city it’s courteous to use the street as quickly as you can, because a lot of other people need to use it also.
Which circles back around to why so many people may think that West Coast drivers are discourteous and driving too fast. Southern California has thirty million residents, and even more cars. That makes it one heckuva big city, and big city rules of etiquette apply here more than in any other place besides the Boston to Washington corridor. As our population increases (and it will you know) more and more of the country will be in the same situation. Like it or not, California is a harbinger once again. The good news is that it actually works quite well. The bad news is that people from smaller towns all think you’re a maniac.
The maniacs.
