By Pat
January 3, 2011 - 4pm
Goddamn Traffic
So we here at the Theory live and musificate in the small hamlet of Los Angeles, California but I, Patrick Cleary, engage in all of my crazy, science work in San Pedro, California, some 35 miles away. "35 miles!" you might say "that's nothing you adorable, lucky bastard!". You might say this but you would be, unfortunately, quite wrong (except about the adorable part perhaps). The reason you would be wrong, my friends, is that, to get to San Pedro from my house I have to take the 101 freeway, which runs right through the heart of downtown LA, as in fuck you in the butt traffic style heart of LA. In my extensive, exTENSIVE research which comprises of traveling said 35 miles in an hour and a half to two and a half hours... Yeah, seriously, I have realized a few factors that I believe strongly contribute to the horrible gridlock that is my life between the hours of 6&8 am/5&7 pm. The biggest problem, as I may have mentioned before, is that people are really, really stupid. For one thing rain, even the merest, slightest drizzle, seems to turn people from normal, rational human beings into thoughtless, crash-happy car chimps. I kid you not the first day this whole downpour thing started i passed not one, not two, but five accidents. FIVE ACCIDENTS!!! Up from zero the day before! How in the name of everything holy does that freaking happen??? I'll tell you how: these god forsaken LA drivers think they can still tailgate doing 80 and not run into any kind of easily foreseen trouble. And this, amigos, is just the tip of the retarded iceberg. Wanna change lanes? Better do it like an asshole because god forbid you signal your merge. There could be a ten car gap but as soon as you throw the freakin blinker on that car behind you is gonna gun their engine and do their best to make you regret ever wanting to be in the second to far right lane. Speaking of merging, nobody in this city knows how to freaking do it. Downtown on the 101 is nothing but mergers: from the city, from the 10, from the 101: when your sitting still with nothing to do but tear your hair out it's easy to see the shitfuckery that goes down and trust me, it isn't pretty. The three lanes involved, or even closely associated with, merging become some seething mass of skewed automobiles trying to dry-hump their way wherever they want to be. This whole infuriating mess has led me to the decision that there needs to be two separate portions to the California state driver's test: the road test and the freeway test. If you can't pass the freeway test then you don't get to drive on the freeway simple as that, in fact I've been thinking of writing a letter. Probably to Arnold because, let's face it, the Terminnator certainly holds more sway with the government than some random dude from Los Angeles. Compounding all of this human dumbassitude is the shit poor way that the freeways around here are designed. Before you hit downtown the 101 is 4 lanes plus a carpool lane, with the added convenience of breakdown lanes. Fast forward three miles and you've shrunk down to three lanes with absolutely zero shoulders. Not only is this a bottleneck but when the local stupidity inevitably produces a crash then, guess what, you're down to two lanes: the +3 to terrible day epic situation that everyone (read:no one) wants to be a part of. I've been trying to be an extra super nice driver to maybe, possibly, somehow, via some superhuman pay it forward moral victory improve my own piloting situation but, let's face it, there is no. Freaking. Chance.... Shit.
