WhaHappen?

How did I go from this...

to this?

In a couple of hours I have to get on the road to pick up my daughter from the train station in Fullerton, California, which is about 60 miles from my home. Driving that distance in the Los Angeles area can mean an ETA of 1 hour or 3 hours — Depending On Traffic. This variable time range is what I call D.O.T. time. Not based on the transportation department DOT, although sometimes they do have a huge impact on this time-space continuum when they decide to do road construction on heavily traveled routes (by which I mean, every navigable inch of concrete in LA).

There are different kinds of traffic in LA. Exactly when you’re going to arrive somewhere just depends on:

What time are you going to be on the freeway? Here’s a really simple guide to gauge how long it’s going to take you to get from Point A to Point B. Ok – the 405 Freeway will take you exactly 405 minutes. The 210 Freeway, 210 minutes, and so on. But for the 5 Freeway, it’ll take you 5 hours. I told you it was easy. And highly accurate. Fellow LA drivers will agree with me on this.

Will you be unfortunate enough to have to cross anywhere near the paths of unforgiving pythons called the Orange Crush, the 4-Level Interchange, the Sepulveda Pass, the Cahuenga Pass, the Newhall Pass, or the Tejon Pass? These menacing concrete coils will capture you in and squeeze and suffocate your will to live. It is not pretty.

Is it raining? Fact: People in Southern California have no skills for driving in the rain. It just makes them look up and think: What are those transparent teardrop-shaped elements covering my windsh- – LOOK OUT! – (insert garbled unholy references here).”

Is there a police pursuit on your route? (A protest march? A Britney Spears sighting?) There is an exception here: If you’re the one being pursued, you will get to your destination alot faster. You can go as fast as you want because the “reverse police escort” is like the parting of the Red Sea. And law enforcement is considerate enough to block all on-ramps throughout your predicted route so others can’t dare to upstage you on video.

Is there any kind of traffic collision in any stage (just occurred, investigative portion, cleanup and towing phase)? Any freeway crash inspires the Lookyloo “Wha Happen?” CSI wanna-be. These experts, in the time it takes for them slow down and pass the scene, will have already solved the entire procession of events. “Oh, look, it was that SUV’s fault, he must have been speeding in the fast lane, lost control, plowed into the center divider – where those 30-foot skid marks rest – and spun out, tagged the little Toyota two lanes over and caused it to overturn.” They can even sign the report.

Those people who just have to look are the ones most responsible for freeway congestion. You will sit in traffic because of those people. It doesn’t matter that the accident actually happened 20 miles ahead from where you’re now sitting at zero mph and that it occurred 2 hours ago. It’s the uncontrollable urge to witness the aftermath of a crash, multiplied by 3000 drivers, each staring for their 30 seconds of crash scene intake, so they can conclude who was at fault. And the irony, of course, is that follow-up collisions happen when one Lookyloo rear-ends another. Which then causes a second wave of CSI wanna-be’s.

Remember: Only YOU can prevent Looklyloo traffic. Fight the urge. For more (and much better researched) information about the “psychology” of how traffic happens, check out this book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). I’m still reading it and have noticed alot of the points author Tom Vanderbilt makes. I am now a reformed merger.

Well, I have to hit the 5 freeway now, so if I don’t make it back by Thanksgiving dinner, I hope you have a very happy and safe holiday!