Driving 101 in Southern California

Just a few guidelines to follow when driving in the southern California area. If you live here, then you should know these already but if you are moving here or just visiting, please pay close attention to these helpful tips.

Rules of the Road:

1. The speed limit should really be viewed as the lowest possible speed you are driving, especially on the freeway. Instead of following the posted numbers (which are just a suggestion anyway), just follow the eighteen year old going 85. You will be much safer.

2. Under NO circumstances should you use your turn signal!! (For those of you unfamiliar with this device, it is located on the left side of your steering column) Whether you are changing lanes on a freeway during rush hour or going 40mph on a city street and abruptly decide to turn into a shopping center, the turn signal is completely pointless. In fact, it may be better for you to leave your turn signal on and keep the drivers behind you guessing when you’ll turn.

3. Feel free to change lanes on the freeway without checking the lane you are moving into…for that matter feel free to jump three lanes! Everyone understands that you were not paying attention and CANNOT miss your exit!

4. We are all experts at multitasking, so if you need to shave, apply make-up, read your morning paper, or talk on your phone while driving to work in the morning, it is no problem! Driving with your knees is perfectly acceptable as long as you are glancing at the road once in awhile.

5. When you come upon an intersection without a left turn signal arrow, you should sit and wait for people to turn left while you wait to turn right. Forget that note in the DMV handbook that people turning right have the right of way!

6. It is generally accepted that the faster you are driving on the freeway, the farther left you should be in the lanes. However, if you are going to be on the freeway for a long distance, then you are definitely justified in staying in the far left lane. This applies regardless of your speed. If you are going 65mph and have people passing you on the right doing 80mph, they may honk as they pass you. Just ignore them – they are most likely suffering from road rage and will take it out on whomever they are talking to on their phone.

7. When you are driving onto the freeway from a city street, do not bother to speed up to the flow of traffic. Take your time and slowly increase your speed from 40mph until you are amidst the freeway traffic. Then maybe you could speed up to 60mph. But only if you are ready!

8. If you spot an accident on the freeway (doesn’t matter which side of the freeway), you MUST slow down or stop and check out what is happening. Depending on how many vehicles are involved and how serious the accident is, you may have to immediately call friends and/or family members to tell them about it! Do not continue driving down the freeway until you have seen as much as you can from your vehicle.

There are many more but I wanted to at least cover some of the basics. So I hope that all of you can now drive like the SoCal drivers….or at least fake it!! Happy driving (or whatever else you may be doing while moving down the road)!!