<p>HOW DID I MISS THIS POST YESTERDAY?</p>
<p>Traffic? </p>
<p>Dude. You have NO. IDEA. </p>
<p>/And I second the parking question.</p>
<p>I drove a stick on LA/OC freeways for 20 years. My clutch knee used to ache from the I-5 shuffle.</p>
<p>neutral (standing still)
first
second
first
neutral
first
neutral
first
neutral
first
second
first
second
first
second
first
neutral
first
neutral
first
second
first
second
THIRD!
second
first
second
first</p>
<p>And then would come the next five minutes of my commute. Thanks, but I'm happier since I've gone over to the Dark Side.</p>
<p>For some reason, I find a long freeway drive oddly meditating sometimes. Maybe I'm just LA to the bone that way, or maybe I'm just weird. It helps when you have nothing in particular to do.</p>
<p>But yea, when you actually have to go somewhere on time, traffic really, really sucks. I spent the summer driving from Long Beach to Rosemead for work, which really isn't a bad drive without traffic, but in rush hour in the summer heat... let me just say I spent many an hour drive sweating out 100 degree heat in dress clothes.</p>
<p>McGizzle- dude, me too w/ the oddly meditating. i really like driving, preferably when i can actually move. but if i'm trying to go home on a friday night (home home, orange county home) and there's traffic, then whatever. i generally try to overestimate how long it will take me to get there so i don't feel like it's THAT bad. I'm awesome at estimating/predicting 405 traffic patterns at this point. I know exactly where there should be traffic and where there shouldn't be depending on the itime of day and the day itself. If i purposely tell myself that itll take 3 hours to get home on a friday night and it only ends up taking 2, i'm completely stoked. </p>
<p>However, if its the morning at 530 am and iI KNOW it should only take 50 minutes and it takes 90, i'm hugely unhappy and go into mega agressive mode. </p>
<p>Totally depends on what the end goal is. i hate the unexpected traffic so, so much more than the traffic i resign myself to. </p>
<p>but yeah. friday night traffic is when i have soooo much time to think and i come up with so much stuff that i don't think about when im doing anything else. i could totally write an awesome novel if i were just in the car alllllll the time (and had a thought recorder. or something).</p>
<p>granted i havent had to commute in LA traffic for hours on end every day, but when i had my car here last year it wasnt anything unbearable. maybe because my clutch is light. and in heavy traffic i just leave it in 2nd unless i have to start from a standstill.</p>
<p>but also, there some "tricks" like maximizing the space in front of you instead of hanging onto the guy's bumper like everyones does in their automatics. this will let you stay in 2nd and coast along. if you do it right you dont have to adjust your speed at all. (lets say traffic is going 20-0-20-0-20...etc. you want to try to creep along at the average speed everyone else is going. if you have enough "cusion" you will be able to coast along at 10 mph without touching the gas, clutch, or brake.)</p>
<p>Space in between cars as a concept is ok and makes sense most of the time, but when people leave a football fields length between them and the car in front of them and I'm directly behind the person, omg. Seriously, the anguish. </p>
<p>DRIVE YOUR CAR, PLZ.</p>
<p>*I swear to god, just thinking about that raised my bloodpressure.</p>
<p>VTECaddict and allie, I used to have the I-5 programmed in my brain. I know exactly which lane to be in at which spot at which time of day to maximize average speed. I flowed, I oozed, I nipped into invisible spots. It was fun. The worst thing that OC did was to widen the I-5, thereby ruining the fun of beating the road. With 12 lanes, everyone goes the same speed. It sucked the fun right out of it.</p>
<p>Now the 405 -- 50 miles of total gridlock 10 lanes wide six hours a day. Dang. Now THAT was traffic!</p>
<p>The 405 is much, much better than the 5 on most occasions. It sucks in West LA, but after a while you just learn to take sepulveda or sawtelle until howard hughes and you fly. The valley also sucks, but I never go that far so it's ok. Sometimes the 405 slows down around carson but generally it moves, unlike in West LA where it takes 45 minutes to go literally 4 miles. </p>
<p>But yeah. At this point the 405 for the stretch of my commute is divided into 3 ideally-20-minute sections. home to westminster, long beach to lax, and lax to sunset. Most of the times this is actually pretty accurate, except on fridays where 20 minutes for the latter two is really closer to 45 minutes. It's so much more bearable if I mentally break it up though. </p>
<p>The 5 alllllways seems to be gridlocked though. And generally for the entire length of my drive. I avoid it at allll costs.</p>
<p>"where exactly do you plan to park it?"</p>
<p>There are no spots to park on campus? dang.</p>
<p>mustang, just do some research first. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>transportation.ucla.edu</p>
<p>ok about $700/year it seems. thats nothing compared to the oos fee.</p>
<p>allie the 405 is horrible in the valley too! especially sunset to the 101. . sawtelle was the secret route for my culver city/baldwin hills friends to west la. since i dont take this route anymore heres two other great north/south to south bay west LA routes... barrington/mclaughlin and inglewood avenue. esepcially the latter.</p>
<p>All this talk makes me want a car next year...:rolleyes:</p>
<p>
<p>DRIVE YOUR CAR, PLZ.</p>
<p>*I swear to god, just thinking about that raised my bloodpressure.
and this is why it doesnt work most of the time. textbook automatic transmission driver mentatily. hang onto the bumper if the person in front of you as if your life depended on it. OMG OMG 2 inches! i have to fill the gap!</p>
<p>
[quote]
To San Gabriel
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'd take 10 and 110 to South Pasadena, and then take Huntington drive.</p>
<p>well, you really do have to tailgate unless you want some idiot cutting you off. smart driving = offensive driving, but not too aggressive though. and if it's slightly obnoxious to other drivers, just give 'em the finger. :D</p>
<p>VTE- except i'm really not talking about the average stick driver. I'm talking about stupid chicks in their giant, giant suvs who are too afraid to get anywhere near the car in front of them. Or out of state people who clearly don't mind if they have to spend all day on the freeway. </p>
<p>Like I said- space is one thing. but going slow ON PURPOSE, to avoid approaching the car in front of you, makes me crazy. </p>
<p>And yeah. If you leave too much room, people see it as an invitation to not only move into in your lane, but also usually go slower than the person in front of you before was. And that ALSO makes me crazy.</p>
<p>i miss doing the pedal dance. :(</p>
<p>I know this thread has died, but I'd just like to state for the record that I got from West Hollywood to South Orange County in SIXTY minutes. Only fifty minutes on the actual freeway. </p>
<p>ON A FRIDAY. FRIDAY AFTERNOON. </p>
<p>This is a big deal.</p>
<p>how is this possible allie. right now (7 pm) the 405 is a mess</p>