Tag: driving

Before I moved to California, I hadn’t really heard too much about drivers in this state.  There were no ominous warnings about the traffic system.  I had thought that driving here would be very similar to driving in Pittsburgh, but I now know that to not entirely true.  Here then, are the driving lessons I’ve learned since moving.

Lesson 1: Left Turn Blues
In Pittsburgh, there’s a driving maneuver which is the city’s collective greedy way of dealing with the fact that left-turners at traffic lights get no respect.  The person at the front of a line of traffic at a red light, if turning left, can gun it as soon as the light turns and make the left before opposing traffic gets up enough speed to beat them through the intersection (or ram them).

Over here, it is near impossible to even find an intersection where one could execute a Pittsburgh Left.  90% of intersections with lights have specific left turn signals.  Is this a more practical and/or elegant solution?  Perhaps.  But it takes the joy and victory out of a left turn.

Lesson 2: Ready or Not, Here I Come
I sometimes wonder if cars made in California have turn signals or if they’ve been scrapped as some part of green program.  I was appalled when I first arrived.  It seemed like no one ever signaled for lane changes, much less turning.  How could these drivers survive?  What kind of world are we living in?

But, like a sinister yet subtle virus, it spreads.  After a few months, a car cutting into your lane with no signal is routine.  A year later, you find yourself neglecting your turn signal at intersections where you’re obviously going to turn.  I fear it will only be a matter of time before I myself am convinced that other drivers on the road can read my mind as I cut across three lanes of traffic.

Lesson 3: U-Turns are Mandatory
Making a U-turn in Pittsburgh was a rare occurrence and only done when mistakes were made.  It was hard enough in the narrow streets to even find a place where you could pull one.  It was much easier to just make three lefts and be done with it.

Here, the streets are paved with U-turns.  It’s frustrating to find intersections where you’re not allowed to make a U-turn because so many directions end with, “…then make a U-turn and it’ll be on your right.”  Whoever designed most of the roads around here was obsessed with the idea that cars driving on one side of the road should have as little interaction as possible with cars on the other side, like some sort of awkward high school dance.  Median barriers are the de facto standard and U-turns are the only way around them.

There are also the obvious natural benefits of just being in California: no digging your car out of the snow a quarter of the year, no early melting of the lower half of your car because of road salt, and the ability to drive with your windows down year-round.

Those help make up for the fact that you can’t pull up to a light with your left turn light blinking aggressively, creep forward as the other light turns yellow, and gun it home as you swing through the intersection, fast, furious, ‘n ‘at.