Thoughts while driving

I work downtown.  It takes me about an hour to get to work and about an hour and a half to get home.  I have no idea why, except the one-way streets and all the construction make for a longer commute OUT of the City than into it.  Weird. 

I have been driving downtown for almost 32 year- give or take, longer than that if I add in the two years I worked at CDD.  I  took the train and the subway for several years but that doesn't really work with where I am living and taking the subway took a lot longer than driving and I really was't saving money, so back behind the wheel.

I have had my license since I was 17.  This is LA   the car culture is everything.  I drove my mom's candy apple red Maverick, when she could spare it.  She loved that car. They bought me a VW when I started college. it was named Hans Joachim or HA Jot for short.  After a while I nicknamed it Hansel, as it left a trail of oil wherever it went.  Sigh. It leaked so much, I carried a case of oil and a spout in the back seat.  I could stop and a stop light, open the motor compartment and add oil before the light changed. PIT CREW!

When I started driving, my mom told me to drive like everyone had just been released from the insane asylum.  Good advice, even more so today, where drivers act like they are the only car on the road.  My favorite types are:

The luxury car driver who thinks he owns the whole road

The Uber or Lyft driver who parks in the rush hour lanes and puts their blinkers on like they are broken down and NOT waiting for a fare

The driver who cuts you off THEN signals to indicate they have JUST CUT YOU OFF

The driver who tailgates you in rush hour traffic, as if you could magically make the traffic go away. HEY BUDDY there's a car in FRONT of me.  I usually move over and watch them tailgate that car.

The driver who sees the long line of cars trying to turn right but races to the front of the line and plays chicken with you. 

The driver who knows the lane next to you is going to end or exit the freeway, but jumps OUT of that line and races around to try to get ahead of everyone in the lane he was in.  Way to go, you just got two cars ahead of me.  Congratulations.

As near as I can tell, I have about 900 more days of this excitement before I retire and stop driving downtown. I WILL say this. Commuter drivers are easier to deal with than the Average Driver who is going somewhere on the weekend and encounters traffic. Those drivers get angry and confused and are much more unpredictable and road ragey  than people who do this for a living, so to speak.

I'm off to get in my car. Thank GOODNESS for Pandora and books on CD!