Driving in Los Angeles

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles."  So says the narrator of Less Than Zero.  I recalled this famous 1980s line as I drove this morning from San Pedro to Beverly Hills and back and noted that I hadn't observed anyone having merging difficulties, even at that glommed up section of the 405 north near the Santa Monica Boulevard exit where they've been doing construction forever.  And although I didn't observe any fearful merging, I did get annoyed with people who didn't use their turn signals. I understand that being allergic to turn signals is a common affliction whose symptoms no pharmaceutical company has been able to suppress with expensive little pills; however, I would like to tell those who are ailing from this allergy that to let others know where they are going just makes sense when there are two trillion cars on the road.

Another freeway pet peeve of mine is when people drive too closely to the car in front of them.  How can being six inches away from the bumper of the car in front of you be good for your nervous system?  The strange thing is that when these impatient drivers change lanes when they become frustrated by the slow driver in front of them, they either end up far behind the car they were tailgating, albeit in a different lane, or they end up just one car ahead of the car they passed.  I don't understand.  Anyway, merging too slowly onto freeways is just plain dangerous, but the first line of Less Than Zero is a metaphor, my dear readers, and it works.

However, here's a peaceful scene of the Four Level near downtown LA in 1954: