Private Psychedelic Reel

Good fucking advice. What do you think?

Los Angeles is a classic example of a “driving city”.  Here everything is so spread out, that for total freedom of travel, it’s almost absolutely necessary to have your own car.  The need to drive from every “Point A” to “Point B” has become a habit for most people.  To get a carton of milk, one feels the need to drive a couple of blocks to go to the grocery store.  Driving is in the culture: “Nobody walks in LA”.  Perhaps this kind of laziness is an example of why California’s roads are so congested.

More traffic on the roads means higher incidence of conflict, due to driver error and mistakes. Everyday I share the road with people who make these mistakes.  Just look at Sigalert: On any given workday, our freeways are cluttered with accidents.  When a drop of rain falls, the freeways become warzones.  On a slight turn, there will be brake lights.  There will be people texting, no matter how illegal it is.

Before I set out to drive, I always adjust my side view mirrors out to just outside of the view of the vehicle behind me so that I can see vehicles in my blind spot.  But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t look over your shoulder.  It’s just an extra sense of awareness.  What I can’t see in my side view mirrors, I will be able to see in my rear view mirror.  This helps to lessen the blind spots.  But you might need to adjust your passenger side mirror in a bit to see oncoming motorcyclists in parking lot traffic especially if you’re in the fast lane.

Frequently scan for an escape.  You have to have a mentality that everyone is out to get you.  Look for pockets of escape, or an escape lane.  Also remember that you can use the emergency lane or semi dotted lines in order to avoid an accident.  I was almost sideswiped once by an oblivious lane changer who was probably on the cell phone.  So I had to move into the pocket of escape that I had tracked earlier.  Without doing so, another car beside me may have prevented me from avoiding the oblivious lane changer.  Stay out of other drivers’ blind spots.  Speed up a little if you have to.  Every once in a while, you’ll have motorcyclists who hang along your blind spots.  There will always be those kind of riders around.  In parking lot traffic, you might need to adjust your passenger side mirror a bit to see oncoming.

Read other drivers’ intentions.  Watch out for drivers that are tailgating. They may move into your lane.  Look where drivers’ heads are pointing.  Keeping a good distance prevents rear end collisions from happening.  A car in front of me rear ended another car, so I changed lanes right on time.

Look for red flags to avoid.

A driver with a cell phone in one hand will be driving less attentively.  They also are more likely to be driving slow.

Watch for cars weaving onto the reflectors, for they may be falling asleep periodically, taking 1 second naps.

If there is an accident, there will almost always be “lookie-loos”. These drivers think that, like car fires, accidents are the most beautiful thing on the planet, so traffic slows down.  Creating distraction by honking your horn isn’t always the best to stir the spectators’ attention from the accident.

Watch out for drivers with Austin Powers Syndrome---it's when they stop or flash their brakes way too early.  Have you seen the part where the guy being approached by a steamroller tells Austin Powers to stop?

Watch out for road ragers.  Just stay away.  This is all an ego trip.

Let your presence be known, especially when you encounter transitions on the freeway.  Use the high beams often to blip merging traffic, especially at night.  Because no matter how white your car is, they still won’t see you.  Trust me.  I sometimes drive with the high beams on in daylight.